Kayley Nguyen
Dr. Quillin
ELA
December 13, 2016

Zeus

This week I decided to write about Zeus, the god of the sky, controls lightning, and he was considered the ruler of olympian gods. He was the last child of the Titans Cronus and Rhea. He was the only one that wasn't swallowed by his father. Cronus saw that his children were becoming to powerful he thought that his kids were going to overthrow him, so he started swallowing his children which were Demeter, Hestia, Hera, Hades, and Poseidon. Zeus was not swallowed because his mother Rhea hid Zeus from Chronus and he was raised in the forest by Nymphs. His brothers and sisters never died in Cronus stomach but they couldn't get out. Zeus ended up overthrowing his fathers throne when one day he decided that he wanted to save his brothers and sisters. Zeus had an ability to change or turn himself into any person or animal. He disguised himself to something that Cronus wouldn't recognize him by. He gave Cronus a special potion and when Cronus drank it, he coughed up all five of his children. Zeus had a famous and common weapon, this weapon was a thunderbolt, which he hurled to people that displeased or disrespected him. Zeus had many affairs with different woman even though he was married to Hera. Hera was Zeus' sister and she was also the goddess of patron and marriage.  He tricked Hera into marrying him by disguising himself into a hurt bird. He raped Hera and she felt so shameful, she married him. They had many children Zeus wasn't a bad god just because he did this to Hera. Zeus watched over all people/ the community, and was the protector of the people.

Kayley Nguyen
Dr. Quillin
ELA
November 3, 2016


In the book “Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglas”, the author likes to express how education was important to Frederick Douglas and how he was striving to learn how to read and write. Frederick became aware with what is going around him, how he was involved in slavery and realized that he did not want to be part of this anymore. The more Frederick learns the more of a chance he thinks that he has to escape. In the book they talk about how Frederick used his writing to forge Mr. Hamilton’s Signature, making it easier to trick people into not knowing that they let a slave free. I think that education helped slaves understand what's going on and what they are forced to do, giving them the power of knowledge.  Having knowledge in this case was very important, useful, and effective. I think this is why slave owners do not want to give the slaves a education because education is knowledge and knowledge is power.

Kayley Nguyen
Dr. Quillin
ELA
October 6, 2016

The Arrow and the Song

My favorite poem from my victorian reader was "The Arrow and the Song". I really enjoyed this poem and found it interesting. This poem uses many sound devices like rhyming, an example of rhyming is "long, long afterward, in an oak. i found the arrow, still unbroken". This poem also talks a lot about how love is like an arrow flying in the air and how the character is finding love. When reading this poem the tone is very easy to identify, like sometimes when you read poems its hard to understand from another persons point of view. It had lots of onomatopoeia with the rhyming and all of the words went well together. I think by the way the author wrote it the theme went along great and the poem flowed well and personally it was one of the best poems ive read. 

Young Man's Song

The title, Young Man's Song, really relates to the rest of the poem.  When he says "I am too young" that obviously relates to a boy or young man asking if he is too young to find love. When he says, "I am old enough" he shows that he is old and mature. It's about finding love and maturity as a young man. He explains the struggles and emotions of finding love. It is a thing all teen boys think  about at that age. Love is new to teens and all boys wonder the same things can. To me, that's why it's called "Young Man's Song," because all teen boys learn about love with the same emotions.

Kayley Nguyen
Dr. Lee
IHSS
September 16, 2016
    Life on the River
On Tuesday our IHSS group went to the HMNS exhibit. We separated into two different groups and we talked about “Life of the River”, “Out of the Amazon”. I enjoyed this exhibit very much and found it extremely interesting. The Amazon is located in South America and spans across Brazil, Bolivia, Columbia, Ecuador, and many others.
The Amazon can fit around Texas four times and also has the biggest tropical rainforest in the world. The Amazon river is the second longest river in the world. The population of tribes have been slowly decreasing due to the outside world and European encounters. The tribes move above land to avoid flooding during wet seasons and less during dry seasons.Not all of the Amazon rainforest although you might think it is it's really becoming a big deal with deforestation. Cultural ion is also a big deal that is causing disappearance to artifacts in which tribes are now living in poverty. When Europeans made contact it was usually violent and disruptive, by bringing diseases and poaching their animals.
The shura was really interesting to me specifically because they were very paranoid about everything and were very clear about what and what not they cannot do in the tribe. The sugar tribe were famous for shrinking heads to make sure their enemies can no longer harm them. And by taking their heads it showed that they accomplished something and it also was like a trophy to them. They did this by separating the skin from the bone. They bury the bones so they can always have a part of their enemy with them to show pride. Just like preserving leather the head are preserved and then they sewed up their mouth and their eyes closed with a small sharp palm peg. The skin is put into a boiling pot of water for a hour to two hours. The water that is used to boil the head contains herbs like tannin and other things that would help preserve the skin better. The timing of boiling the heads were very important because if you boiled it for a short amount of time the head would not shrink properly. If you put it in too long the hair on top would fall off. Once the head is done shrinking it should be a rubbery texture. If any flesh remained on the head it would be scraped away and sewn back together again. The heads continue to shrink during the drying process, and is turned upside down. The tribe places hot rocks in the head to maintain the facial features. It was really important for the warrior who killed them made sure the the skulls resembled the enemy or victim. After days of the heads remolding the pegs are removed and are replaced with cotton cords. They are later on attached to a cord through the scalp so it could be worn on the neck of a warrior. Once this last step is finish the tribe celebrates the revenge of the enemy.

Response to Poem

Kayley Nguyen
ELA
Dr. Quillin
September 13, 2016

Making a Fist 

Making a Fist was about how a little girl and her mom were trying to cross the border. They sadly got into a car crash and her mom died, leaving her to cross the border on her own. I know this because in the poem they mostly say what's happening, and suddenly her mother died so I assumed that since they were in a car, she died in a car crash. The poem talks a lot about how the little girl in the story is like hilusinating from being in the car so long on the road north of Tampico. At first I did not understand the poem but as I read more and more it started making sense. The poem made a lot of sense from the little details coming together.