After reading The Last Cuentista in Language Arts, our class decided to do a fun project with a local artist, Peg Gignoux. We used akua inks to print plant patterns onto paper. Then, we let the ink dry and made booklets out of the printed papers. We wrote about our ideal worlds and pasted the description on the back.
My ideal world story is pasted below:
Planet Nil
Premise: The reason my world is called Planet Nil is because that is how many humans live on the planet. Planet Earth is 3 million light years away.
In my ideal world, everyone is a tiger, a bunny, or a bunger (a bunny-tiger hybrid) instead of being humans. The laws are the same for everyone. The government system is a representative democracy similar to that of the United Kingdom. Although it is a representative democracy, it is also a theocracy, worshipping the gods Rabith, Tigrin, and Bungren. Laws are based on the Godly Principles, a scroll created by the gods themselves at the beginning of Planet Nil.
The landscape of Planet Nil is quite peculiar compared to Earth. The terrain is a desolate, black wasteland. Although there appears to be nothing, there are some plants, like Folionigro and Cruentamacul. Underground, however, is as colorful as a rainbow dipped in neon paint. Underground is where animals live, and the surface is where they work. There are many underwater cities, and since all three types of animals have adapted to breathing above and below water, they can even live underwater.
Since Planet Nil is not large, only 13 schools exist (triskaidekaphobia doesn’t exist). School only lasts four days a week, but there are only six days in a week. The schools mainly focus on math. Three languages exist, one based on each god. Animals are expected to learn all three languages so they can converse with each other.
There are restrictions on how long animals can be inside to be active. Everyone has to go outside for at least 15 minutes each day unless the weather is extreme. For example, when the temperature is below 30 degrees Fahrenheit or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, that can be called extreme. Animals are always allowed to listen to music (except when doing schoolwork or work from their job) and are even encouraged. Everyone can look at a screen outside of work for two and a half hours each day unless they are sick.
Tigers, bunnies, and bungers are believed to be superior to all the other animals living on their planet. The tigers and bungers eat the other animals while the bunnies and bungers cultivate their gardens. Responsibility plays an essential role on Planet Nil because every bunny and every bunger needs to grow their food, and the system would be messed up if some of them forgot. The tigers and bungers also need to obey the limit of meat they can eat. They can’t just freely hunt other animals. Lastly, tigers and bungers don’t eat bunnies because that is regarded as cannibalism, and bunnies are poisonous for them to eat.
Although you have to watch out for the occasional lava bugs, Planet Nil is a great place to have fun safely. Of course, you can go into the dangerous regions and attempt stunts. It has a variety, the exact reason it is my ideal world.
Over the past three months, I have been reading an ebook called Wisdom Tales by Heather Forest. Wisdom Tales is a collection of myths, fables, and parables. Once I finished reading, I made a comic out of one of the stories. I chose The Tiger’s Whisker because my favorite animals are tigers and it was the perfect length.
The Tiger’s Whisker is about a woman whose husband returns from war with no love. She goes to a wise man to ask for a love potion and he demands a tiger’s whisker. She leaves meat near a tiger in the woods every day, getting closer and closer each day until it allows her to sit right next to it. She waits for the tiger to fall asleep and cuts off one of its whiskers. She gives it to the wise man who asks her how she got it. She explains and he throws the whisker in the fire. He tells her that if she can tame a tiger, she can melt her husband’s icy heart. The moral is to be patient and you will almost get your way in life.
In order to draw these characters, my grade attended a lesson from Brittain Peck, a visual storytelling artist. He gave us some tips about how to draw such as using simple shapes for characters and their clothes. This helped speed up the process because instead of trying to draw a really complicated character I was able go from one character to another in no time.
I used Sketchbook and ComicLife3 to create my comic. In Sketchbook, I was able to layer my characters and backgrounds so I didn’t have to draw them over and over again which was helpful. Also, in Sketchbook, the undo button saved me many times. ComicLife3 was very useful because it allowed me to choose what size I wanted the boxes for the comic and the shape of the speech bubbles. Also, I was able to choose the themes of each page so I could customize it easily.
Overall, I think that the Wisdom Tales are very useful for learning about different cultures and their morals. The comic helped me show my artistic side and how much I understand the morals of the story. Comment what your favorite style of drawing is.
“A habit is a behavior that has been repeated enough times to become automatic.”
Atomic Habits – James Clear
In our Language Arts class, we were learning about atomic habits and reinforcing them with a daily habit. For seven weeks we would plank for 30 seconds and add 15 seconds each week. During this time, I learned what it means to really practice something so that it becomes a habit. Finally, at the end of the seven weeks, we had a plank challenge that happened to be on my birthday. I planked for five minutes and the winners were Diego and Avery, who tied at 28 minutes and couldn’t continue because it was X period. I think that this habit helped me learn more about myself and you should try it too. Comment what habit you would try.
Photo from Unsplash
I read for many reasons. One reason is that I was bored over the summer and decided to try some books. I started Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë and got about halfway through when I finally decided that I couldn’t understand many of the words and the plot was rather boring for my specific taste. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the book A Separate Peace by John Knowles. It was about a boy who reminisces on his days in boarding with his boisterous friend. Some other interesting books that I’ve read are Skellig by David Almond and Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt. Skellig was really moving and included a lot of symbolism such as the owls and the half/human, half/angel animal. Wednesday Wars had many subtle jokes and the main character described high school pretty realistically.
One of my lifelong desires is to publish a poetry book about animals such as tigers and bunnies. My reasoning is that I love animals and poetry is very free-spirited. However, I find that a book about tennis would be quite intriguing if I had the time and facts. What sort of book would you like to write?
Recently I read a book called Silver by Chris Wooding. It was one of the first post-apocalyptic books I’ve ever read. I find that this book was more of a window for me because I’ve never gone to a boarding school or been chased by zombies. Also, being in sixth grade, I haven’t experienced much “romance”. Overall, I think that this book really helped open new doors for my literary side.
Photo from Unsplash
I’ve been playing tennis ever since the summer after 1st grade when my parents enrolled me in a tennis camp. I thoroughly enjoyed it because there were only three kids including me around my age so we goofed off a lot. For several years I played on and off with tennis because I was more interested in soccer. However, sometime in third grade I decided that I wanted to drop soccer and become more serious about tennis. Now, I play tennis at least four times a week and I’m on a junior tennis team at Docta.
It was a Wednesday morning and everyone was babbling about how psyched they were for Camp Kirkwood and how they hoped it wouldn’t rain much. Although Hurricane Idalia was headed towards Watha, North Carolina, we were still going to camp. On the bus ride, I sat with Addie while numerous people sang Taylor Swift.Once we arrived we rushed to the pavilion where we were then instructed on where our cabins were. Later that day we ate ravenously at lunchtime then continued on to do some group activities. Dinner that night was spaghetti with meat sauce and garlic bread.
The next day, we woke up to a flooded lake and water touching our cabin! After breakfast we learned about trees and then played some more games with our groups. Later in the day we played an epic game of soccer with the final score 0-0 because both of the goalies were great. Afterwards, we went to my favorite activity, the v-swing. The v-swing is where you get pulled up by a rope and you’re attached with some hooks to another rope. Then, you pull a small rope and start swinging in a v motion, hence the name.
By the time we were finished, it was dinner time so we headed back to the main cabin to eat some barbecue and mac’n’cheese. After finishing our dinner, we headed into the woods for a campfire and s’mores. Once that was finished, we all got to go to bed in anticipation for the next morning. That morning, we went on the zipline and then left. On the bus ride back, we were all sleepy. In the last hour, I talked to Julia B. about Halloween costumes and random stuff.
