Today Mr. Mayo made us go into the hall way and write poems.  Mines about having allergies.  Let me get more clear.  Having allergies and how that affects school.  Its called No Sudafed, Just School.  By the way, sudafed is an allergy medication.  Here it is.

No Sudafed, Just School

Wake up, not fun.  Eat Breakfast, sort of fun.  Get on the bus, hell on earth.  Go to school, why not?  All these things are the everyday grind.  Does it change?  Not really.

So anyway all this stuff.  And on top of it, allergies.  No sudafed, just school.  Allergies.  And now i’m sitting in front of the library sniffing and coughing, stifling sneezes.  No sudafed, just school.  Life might not change a lot from day to day.  But allergies and poems sure make it interesting.  Allergies and poems.  Sudafed and school.

Fluorescent lights line the ceiling.  Ceramic tiles line the floors.  Blue and green paint on the walls.  Teachers walking door to door.  Such is the grind, the every day thing.  Even more normal than breathing.  But allergies change it.  Poems too.  Allergies and poems.  No sudafed, just school.

For homework we read this article by John Steinbeck, The author of the book we are reading, The Pearl.

Then we answered these questions:

1. What does John Steinbeck say is needed to write a great short story?
2. Tell us about a short story you remember reading. What stands out about the story?

1.  Steinbeck says that the only thing needed to write a good short story is to write a good short story.  That is to say that in reality there is no magic formula, plot diagram, design or model that will help you write a short story.  You, being the author, “had to convey something to the reader, and the power of its offering was the measure of its excellence.”  You had to write an effective short story.  Other than that, there are no boundaries.

2.  The best short story I ever read was Ferdinand.  It was a story about a young bull who lived in the Spanish countryside.  Ferdinand would much rather sit in the clover patch and smell the wild flowers than go jump and kick and rough house with the other bulls.  But one day, some men from the bull fights in Madrid came to buy some bulls.  Ferdinand was sitting down when he got stung by a bee.  His reaction was so crazy the men bought him and hauled him all the way to Madrid.  When he got there he just sat down in the middle of the ring and looked at all the people so he had to go back home.  The most memorable thing about the story was that Ferdinand was so content sitting and smelling the wild flowers that even when antagonized he would not fight the bull fighters.

I’m sorry, but the website will not let me post the good version of the movie.  So just enjoy what you have.

(scroll down to see it.)

Every one wants to star in a movie.  Lots of people want to direct but few want to animate.  “It’s too hard.” “I can’t draw.”  These phrases are often the reason why.  But I recently discovered a new program called ‘Pivot Stick Figure Animator’.  It is an animation program that is relatively easy to use and free.  It gives you some props and characters to work with, and makes it easy to draw your own props.  You can make a cowboy do ‘the robot’.  A man get a clock thrown at his head.  Or, what I did, a stick figure that plays pranks on people with the help of his elephant.

            The movie is called ‘Bob and His Elephant’.  The man is Bob.  The elephant doesn’t have a name.  The movie is short.  Only a minute long.  But it took a good two and a half hours to get the right frames-per-second speed, background music and, of course, content.

            I began by downloading ‘Pivot’.  A simple Google search for ‘Pivot Stick Figure Animator’ will get you to the download page.  I started with no idea I would have an elephant in it.  Pretty soon I needed a helper for Bob.  Thus the elephant.  It took about an hour to finish the animation.  Then I saved it as a GIF file.  To add in music and opening and closing credits, I imported it to Windows Movie Maker.  It comes standard on all Microsoft computers.  From there I searched my iTunes Library for a good fast paced song.  I imported that to Windows Movie Maker as well.  Finally I added in the credits.  So as you can see, being a director or an animator is closer and easier than you may think.

Unfortunately, this website will only let me upload the raw version.  This means that there is no background music or anything but just the movie.  I will try to get the good version up but it might not let me.

As much as i hate it, we have to write the rules again.

Do not change your password.

Do not use your name or give out personal info.

Only post writing you feel comfortable sharing.

Today was library day.  I got the book, Brians Winter.  I think this book is a bout someone named brian.  It is also about surviving thru the winter.

Purpose:  We are using these webpages as our online portfolios.  Thy writing will be about

our ideas and opinions on topics we are studying in class.

Rules 

1. Do not give out ANY personal information.
2. Never plagiarize.  Always use your own words.
3. Use appropriate style of writing.
4. Do not change your weblog’s email, user-name, or password.
5. Blog Responsibly.
6. If you break any of these rules you will lose your weblog for the year.

 Opinion

In my opinion, using these blogs is a good idea.  I realize that we have to be cautious when using the Internet, but I feel like we have to many restraints on what we can do on our blogs.  Hopefully we will have more freedom (comments, writing from home, emailing each other) soon.  I think we are restrained because its the first day and Mr. Mayo still has to get everything set up.  ButI think that soon, we will have a lot more freedom.