It Get's Better

Bullying is a problem every nation faces. But together, we can all bring an end to bullying.
My teacher Ms.Crosbie introduced us to the "It Get's Better Project". We took The Pledge and then made public service announcements about our feelings on bullying.
Mines not that great, but I do hope my point get's across, bullying is just bullying yourself and that there is always people who want to help you, and always people who know how you feel.

For more videos like mine, visit This Link and see more celebrities do videos for the It Get's Better Project.
If you need help, Kids Help Phone is there for you.

Ps. Sorry for the scratchy voice! I have a cold this week so it was difficult to sound decent.

-Sam

Let Us Remember

It's important for us to remember those who fought for our rights and freedoms. Not only those who have passed away, but those who came back to tell the story of their fight. Remembrance Day is to remember all who took great lengths to make our lives safe. Veteran Affairs Canada is doing just this, helping us remember and showing us why we should.

My teacher Ms.Crosbie had us make a video using images from this site using windows movie maker.
Here is my video,

Seeking Truth

Emily Dickenson wrote a very empowering poem and it goes as follows.

Opinion is a flitting thing,
But Truth, outlasts the Sun —
If then we cannot own them both —
Possess the oldest one —

If I were to BEGIN to understand this poem, I'd first break it down.
First I'll break down the words:
Opinion- The voice of someone else on a topic. Their own ideas or thoughts.
Flitting- To move swiftly or lightly.
2. The act of leaving ones home. Usually to escape conflicts.

Truth- To tell the truth, the opposite of telling a lie. To say only what really happened, without cutting out details.
Sun- The planet in which earth and the other planets circle around. Creates heat,energy and light for everything.

Possess- To possess, to have in your hands to own something or someone.

With an understanding of the words the poem to me makes a lot more sense! Now instead of focusing on words I can focus on the chunks of words.

Opinion is a flitting thing - Opinions are swift, short lived.

But truth outlasts the Sun- The truth is more powerful than the opinions. It lasts longer in our minds.

If we cannot own them both- If you can't have your opinions and the truth at the same time,
Possess the oldest one- Keep the truth. It's what has evidence and proof that your opinion isn't as real as you thought.

Now I'll put the poem into my own words in the same style the author had.

Opinions are short and light.
But the truth, can live longer than the Sun,

If you cannot have them both,
Than take the oldest (Truth) one.

Since this is still a little confusing, I'll break it down into a song. Perhaps one about two girls trying to understand each others parts of an argument. This will help me interpret the poem better, instead of a poem this is a song. Song's have stories behind them so this will help me visualize what the author was trying to see.

You say yes, I say no, (arguing)
You say it's something you don't know, ( you don't know the truth )
Our thoughts soon fade away, ( the opinions are going away because of the truth )
but the sun shines bright on the day. ( Your opinions are still in your mind )
I can't keep both, my ideas and truth, ( You can stay true to both parts of the idea )
so I must take, the oldest route. ( so you take the truth. )

Now, with all this information I'll tell you what I found out the poem means to me. 

To me, this poem by Emily Dickenson means to stay true to the real facts. If you always believed something and suddenly found out you were wrong by proof and real facts, You should keep the truth. Opinions always change and you need to understand that the truth is there to proove opinions wrong. Just because someone proves you wrong doesn't always mean it's true. But you should always research your opinions to see if you were thinking the right things. This is what keeps you at peace! It allows you freedom of thought and speech and it lets you voice the truth. The truth of what YOU know is never always what others have opinions for.

-Sam

The Flute

  
HEY! Thinking of considering band in the near future? Not sure what instrument is right for you? Well this is the perfect instrument! The Flute. Would you like to know why It's so great? Well read on and find out.

The Flute is a woodwind instrument with 18 keys. Only 9 of which can be pressed at any one time.

If you were to stay at the top of the flute and work your way down, there would be over 6 different important pieces that make the flute work. At the very top we have the Crown, which is at the top of the Head Joint. Following after is the lip plate and embouchure hole these two parts are what are used to make the sound. Then there is the turning slide, also known as the tenon which attaches the head joint and the body piece. The next part is the body piece which contains all of the different keys. At the very end is the foot joint were the end of the instrument is. 

The clef that this instrument is played is Treble Clef as shown below is what a Treble Clef looks like on a sheet of music. This is located at the very beginning of each arrangement.

Most traces of the flute were found in the 10th century from the Byzantium but others report that the earliest was that of the Chinese Chi Flute. This said to be the earliest of the transverse Flute design. However, later on in time in 1832 Theobald Böhm, a German inventor and musician, came up with today's modern design for the instrument. Giving it a more bowl like shapes, and adding more octaves.

Thus now having a higher pitch for the instrument it was lead on to play important parts in orchestra. With it's fluttering sound it made music more soft and alluring.

If you want to make a sound you first need good posture. Sit upright at the end of your chair with both feet on the ground. Make sure your not slouching or leaning back and make sure to keep your arms up with playing.

    To make the sound with a flute you must first place your bottom lip so it has the lip place resting just above it. Next, you must open your lips a little bit and blow OVER the hole. Watch so you don't blow directly into it, this is challenging for some but many become used to it over time. Once you have gotten the hang of blowing over the hole, make a "To" sound when you want to play a note. Press the keys and blow making the sound. This is called tonguing and makes the note more crisp.

This video is a great example of a good warm up activity on how to play the flute. Notice how her lip is blowing right over the embouchure hole and not into it?

Now with all this said and done you can't make anything work if you can't put the instrument together!
Start by placing the case with the clips at the side right side up. Open the case while making sure everything is in place. Take out the head joint from the side first. Always remember to pull the piece out from the sides, do not rip it out by it's keys because this will surly ruin the instrument. Next, Use a cleaning solution to cleanse it of any residue of germs. Dip ONLY the embouchure plate and hole in the liquid and rinse in water. Dry well and blow in to make sure everything is out. Now, take the body tube out and remove the cleaning stick located inside. Slowly put the head joint into the larger end with the hole on the body piece. Finally, take out the last piece of the Flute, the foot joint and twist the piece slowly onto the end of the body piece that has the smaller hole. If you can't, ask for some oil or assistance from your teacher.

Things to remember about your flute:

• The flute is not a toy, it's an instrument and needs to be taken care of.
• Don't swing the instrument around or leave it in places it could get damaged.
• Keep it in a safe place while in it's case.
• Only pull the pieces out of the case from the sides, never the keys.
• Keep the instrument sterile, don't play while food is still left in your mouth. ( No gum! )

See how awesome The Flute is? Pretty cool! In my time of playing it I found it to be a great thing to play and it's very fun when you put the work into it.

Thanks to

1. http://www.flutehistory.com/
2. http://www.aboutmusic.org/
3. http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/music/flute/
4. http://www.bbc.co.uk/orchestras/learn/guidetotheorchestra/#
5. http://www.artsalive.ca/en/mus/instrumentlab/woodwinds.html#flute
6. http://library.thinkquest.org/5116/
7. http://www2.si.umich.edu/chico/instrument And
8. http://www.sbgmusic.com/html/teacher/reference/instruments/flutes.html

For all the information I used in this post.

-Sam

The Golden Rule

During class today we had a talk about "The Golden Rule" and we talked about what it means in different religions. ( Full version of the image on the left. )
Soon, I came to noticing that even in different beliefs it had the same message.

" Do onto others as you would like them to do onto you".

After we discussed this some more we were assigned this task to answer some questions.

What is the message of the Golden Rule?To me, the message of the golden rule is to treat everyone as you want to be treated. If you are going around attacking people and acting out of context than sooner or later this is how people will treat you. example: If you treat people of different race badly they too will treat you badly. 

Are you aware of the title or message of a TV program, book or popular song which expresses the same idea as the Golden Rule? Explain

There is actually a small image that represents this. This painting is called "Three Wise Monkeys"

"Hear no evil, Speak no evil, See no evil" is the phrase the image is portraying. If you don't judge people and if you don't speak rudely than others shall surely follow! If we need a book than if anyone remembers this family, than you should remember this book (On the left.) "The Berenstain Bears and the Golden Rule". Just as the title is showing the family of bears talk about "The Golden Rule". They talk about the values and how

truly important it is and how to follow it. Normally, we are all doing this in our day to day lives!

Which expression of the Golden Rule do you like the best? Why?My favorite expression is the Taoism expression. "Regard your neighbour's gain as your own gain, and your neighbour's loss as your own loss". To me, it shows how we all have those days where we have to mourn for others close to us who are having a bad day. But when you have a good day and something excellent happens then others can feel it. The happiness spreads, as does sadness.


How would you express the Golden Rule in your own words?

For you to feel happiness, you must show others happiness. Equality can spread and soon come to you. Sadness reflects but understanding makes it easier for one to feel the same.

 At least, that's how I would word it. If you want others to feel sad with you, or happy with you, you need to first feel sad or happy with them. Soon, these actions will come back to you.

What could things be like if everyone behaved according to the Golden Rule?If "Everyone" meant every person in the world, this would mean there would most likely be no war. There would be no hate, racism, segregation, or bullying. Everyone could be equals no matter where they are from or what religion they follow. I like to think every religion has it's form of the golden rule. If each person took the rule close to heart everyone would have good lives. No person ( none that I know of, ) likes to feel hurt or down. That they are bad for being who they are. Therefor, if everyone could follow the rule everyone would have equal rights, and equal prosperity.

Why is it that sometimes we don’t behave according to the Golden Rule?

There is always times that it's hard to treat others as you would like. Perhaps you don't like someone and they can see this, so they don't like you either. If you were to like them then they may change but in some cases it's far to difficult to change your piece of mind.

What are your thoughts on "The Golden Rule"? I'd love to hear what opinions differ in our two thoughts. 

-Sam

The Writing Process

Heard of it? Mainly in the classroom correct? But how unfortunate, you can't seem to remember how to keep the sequence in your head! Never fear, Sam is here!

The Writing Process is as follows,

Planning

Drafting

Revising

Editing

Publishing

Proofreading

In short, PDREPP.

Word Poems are the best way ( I find ) that help you remember things like this. So after thinking for some time I came up with one for this process!

Prunes

Don't

Rule

Egyptians,

People,

Pay attention!

Funny no? I thought this was pretty clever. I hope that helps you with the writing process.
( From now on I'll be sure to use this in the classroom. )

-Sam

Behind My Name

Want to find out your name meaning? Click Me!
The link above will take you to my teacher Ms.Crosbie's blog post, with the same assignment I did. You can now figure out what your name means too!

Behind My Name: As many of you know my name is Samantha, However I like the deliberative Sam more. However, since this assignment requires a full name I'll be using my full name. ( Samantha )

Before I started this assignment, I thought my name was very common with many different parents naming their baby girls, because I always hear my name on many different people. Usually girls, and sometimes boys have the name shortened to Sam. In my time, I've heard my name used many in many different ways. With a quick search over the web, I found out there's actually 24 various spellings of my name. Samanthi, Samanthia, Samatha, Samella, Symantha, Pet names, Sam, Sami, Sammi, Sammie, Sammy, aswell as a few of different origins. Samanta ( Used in French and German ) Samanthe, and Sammantha.
I think my parents chose this name for me because I must have looked like a Samantha. Besides the result that I have found on the site that I will provide soon, I knew that my name also meant graceful. Perhaps as a young infant I looked graceful and at peace.

After searching on Behind The Name, and Baby Names World, I learned that my name means Listener. This information was challenging to find at points because of the many way's my name is spelled.

Some other interesting things I learned, is that my name is most likely an English and female variation of the name 'Samuel'. As not to be confused on the meaning, it does not mean heard by God or heard of as it would be in Hebrew since Samantha is not a Hebrew name like Samuel. I found out that my name is of English decent from this( while my last name is of German.) Some famous actors also share the same name as me. The television show 'Bewitched' from the 1960s had a main character named Samantha, and in James Bond films 'Miss Moneypenny' was played by a Samantha Bond. After finding this information out I searched up my middle name. "Renee" turned out to be a Latin name meaning Reborn. It's a different form of Reneta or Renée, which are commonly used in French and English speaking countries. Renée Zellweger, an American actress shares this name.
Perhaps my name was meant to be "Listener Reborn" (along with my last name which I won't share for safety.) to show that a Listener for the future has come back from the past. At least, that's my theory!

I think my name does/does not (select one) suit me because I'm not very much of a listener. If you knew me well you would know I'm VERY talkative.So Lalage, would be a better suiting name. Or since I was never a sweetheart either, and that I was quite mischievous a name like Kahini would fit just as well.

If I could give myself a new name, it would be Branwen, because I love the ring the name has to it. It means white crow or fair crow, the same name as the daughter of Llyr in the Mabinogion.

Finally, after I did some clicking around I saw a name of a character from my book!
The book of questions being "The Misery" by Stephen King, the name of the character was Annie.Her name means grace and favour. However her character is nothing short of evil. She is very mean to the main character so I don't think her name is very fitting! I think her name should be Bera it means bear and son (daughter) of evil. She is a very cruel character so I think this fits her well. She's a well built woman and she's quite muscular so "Bear" Is a good word to describe her.

It was so cool finding out the definition and meaning of my name, it helped me discover myself a little. It shows a little bit about who you are to know what your name means.
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions feel free to ask I'll gladly answer.
-Sam

Stolen Jackpot

This article surprised me. My teacher Ms.Crosbie brought this up in her blog and asked for our voices and opinions on this topic and I'm happy to share! It's one thing to have pocket change stolen from you but when someone steals 12.1 million dollars it's a completely different story. To sum it up, if you read the article you would realize that the person who had won the ticket was swapped for another. Meaning the clerk was free to run off with his 12.1 million dollar winnings for the true winner had no idea of the swap. Unfortunately the true winner hasn't been found but police and investigators are working hard to find him.

Now, my opinions...I would say that the clerk was extremely ungrateful for taking that kind of prize from an innocent person. The possibility of winning the lottery ( of any amount ) is said to be a 50/50 chance. Even then however people aren't as likely to win as much money as this person did in a normal one shot ticket. With that aside you can see how bad it truly was for the person who lost that kind of money. He was denied so much money for someones greedy scam. It reminds me of an episode of "The Lottery Changed My Life", the people who win are going against odds that are so astronomically small that it's amazing they all hadn't been robbed! One episode actually spoke of one man who had been robbed of one million dollars and had been told he won a mere two dollars. The clerk that stole his winnings ran off to another country and made his life there. It didn't take long for the police to catch him, with the use of technology they found him living there in no time. I find that there are honest people out there that wouldn't cheat people out of money or material possessions which is great but, with something like this happening in the same place I live makes me worry. To me the clerk should just come out and apologize to the winner when they find him and that he should be stripped of his privileges to solicit lottery tickets.

If I were in this type of situation I probably wouldn't know what to do.The first thought I would have however would be "What kind of person would do this?" It's not okay to steal and I've been brought up to remember this just like every other kid has. You wouldn't steal a toy, you wouldn't steal a car, a snack, a video game, or anything of that sorts. What I don't understand is what makes it okay for a clerk in a store ( one which I suggest he would be mad if someone stole from ) to steal from someone else. It's kind of hypocritical right?

Well, that's all the thoughts I have for this event but I hope I sparked your thoughts as well.
What would you do? Anyways thanks for reading and I hope to hear from you guys!

-Sam

We Are All Equals

 Tolerance - Discrimination

We never chose to be this way,

and yet you put us all away.

And Yet we endure the pain.

Our skin is different,

so you affront us.

But we stay strong to who we are.
Our culture is different,

so you pressure us to suture yours.

But we keep our beliefs.

My gender is different

but why must be be treated as such?

I can show you I'm the same as you.

My clothes, my height, my weight, my name, my hair colour,

We are different but we are special in all our own ways.

Hey everyone. Welcome back from the Thanksgiving weekend, I hope you had a great time with your families!
Today's topic is Tolerance and Discrimination. This is a global issue and I think it was great that my teacher ( Ms.Crosbie ) addressed this. I chose to write a poem to express my views on this, it doesn't really rhyme but I hope I got my point across. The blue text is to show words and ways people discriminate others while as the red shows how we put up with it.Such as  how we tolerate abuse and harsh words! People put people down just for being ourselves and it's wrong. No one should have to put up with pain for being born a certain way. We are all amazing,

We are all, Equals.

-Sam

Welcome Down The Rabbit Hole!

Not Literally of course, But welcome to my blog!

Hi! I'm Samantha ( Sam if you like ) I'm so pleased that you stumbled over here! As you can see I'm very into old fashioned movies and stories, such as "Alice In Wonderland" and "The Wizard Of Oz"! I can sing and dance ( I never said 'well') but I'm far to shy to in front of crowds. During my free time I read a lot of books, mainly from authors such as

• Stephen King
• Heather Brewer
• And Michael Crichton

or anything else action packed with tasteful comedy. I'm also an artist, I work on anime and portraits as well as animals. Drawing is a very strong passion of mine. Next, as like every other kid I adore music! But mostly of different languages such as Japanese songs by "Vocaloid", German ones by "Juli" or Estonian ones by "Kerli Kõiv".I like things in English to so don't stray. I favor bands like "The Beatles","Blood On The Dancefloor","Panic At The Disco", "Korn", and "Eminem" but I could list a whole bunch more! I play video games of all sorts such as first shooters or RPG's aswell as how I love the classics. Such as "Pong" Or "Tetris". I'm a nerd who loves "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" but I'm a normal person on the outside! Really!

I'd love to hear your comments or questions about anything I've said so do please ask away. Perhaps you could ask about bands for me  to hear or games to play!
If you stuck around, thanks for reading! If you like, you can tag along on my kooky little adventures! ; )

Pack your bags!
-Sam