Month: November 2018

So, the Crucible is a play we’re reading in class right now. We’ve currently finished Act II, and it’s… quite a lot. The Crucible is set during the Salem Witch Trials, which went from 1692-1693. Fun Fact: Contrary to popular belief, there were no burnings during the witch trails in Salem. They were normally hung and stuff instead. The more you know about murdering people.

So, back to the Crucible. Let’s talk about Act I for a second. It escalates very quickly. It starts off with the Preist’s daughter, Betty Parrish, in bed. She’s sick after being caught doing witchcraft in the woods. Her friend, Abigail, insists they were just dancing. Though after the Putnam’s, who’s daughter is in the same state, come in, the story evolves into the fact that Tituba, the Parrish’s slave, was trying to summon a bunch of the Putnam’s dead babies to see who killed them. After everyone leaves, the story is revealed in it’s whole truth: Abigail and the other girls were drinking blood and trying to use witchcraft to kill off Elizabeth Proctor, who had earlier fired Abigail from working for her. But when everyone comes back in and they start pointing fingers, things escalate.

So naturally all of the girls start naming off other women in the village who have danced with the devil.

Alright, that was probably a lot of information. So, how does one communicate that to a classroom full of kids? Well, the language of Gen Z: memes. Yes, I made a meme to translate Act I. Because of course I did.

Ah yes, the classic meme of brain evolution, which also shows the escalation of the blame in Act I. See, memes work. Education kids with memes, word of advice.

Anyways, I’ll read you later

Sincerely, Parker

In class, we’ve been reading a play called The Crucible. If you haven’t heard of it, which is unlikely, it’s a play about Salem during the time of the Salem Witch Trials. The Crucible had arguably gone down in history. It’s famous, and history has kept it that way. The Crucible was written in the 50’s, and yet is still popular today.

So, now we ask ourselves the question: What piece of media is going to outlive all of us and still be very recognizable? Boy do I have an answer for you.

The MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) is definitely going to carry on into the future. It’s such a big part of the culture in 2018, and it’s going to keep on being that way. The MCU has produced 20 films since 2008, when the first Iron Man movie came out. It’s most recent, as of writing this, was Ant Man and the Wasp, which came out in 2018. The fact that it’s remained so popular throughout ten years is helped by the fact that there were comics before, but it’s mainly due to the fact that they’re good movies, unlike DC (I would say no shade but I’m ready to throw shade).

Speaking of DC, let’s do a comparison. Why have the many, many attempts to get Batman not the big screen failed, but the MCU remains strong? How has that happened when they’re both superheroes? Well, it’s because Marvel has better writers, better plots, and better characters. The Marvel writers know how to make a compelling story, they know how to make you laugh, make you scared, and make you sad. DC, on the other hand, hasn’t grasped that. I can only hear Christian Bale scream about Rachel for so long.

Carrying on: The plots of Marvel movies are also more interesting, and have important messages in them. Let’s take one of my favourites, Spider-Man: Homecoming. In it, a young 15-year-old Peter Parker is trying to balance being a teenager at school and working as Spider-Man. A villain, who goes by Vulture, is illegally selling weapons and it’s up to Spider-Man to save the day, while also keeping his identity secret from his classmates, Aunt, and best friend. At one point in the movie, he lets being Spider-Man completely take over his life. He winds up putting a ship full of people in danger, and almost gets them killed.

This pushes the message of not letting something consume consume your life. Of course, it’s not going to be life-threatening, but the message stands. Peter let his duties as Spider-Man take over his life, and he almost died and got other people killed. He didn’t, however, because Tony Stark (Iron Man) came in to help. After that happens, Stark takes away Peter’s suit, ensuing this fight:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wE9ajn-lRr4

As you notice, there are some lines that really jump out. “I’m nothing without the suit” “If you’re noting without the suit then you shouldn’t have it at all.” Peter goes on to the end of the movie and defeats the Vulture without the suit. Another important message is shown there. Peter doesn’t need the suit to be Spider-Man, because he’s more than the suit. He can do everything he needs to without the suit and he still remains victorious.

Another important point is the characters. The characters in Marvel are so much more than just ‘here’s a strong guy, he’s a superhero.’ They’re people that are relatable and are realistic. They’ve got flaws, they go through hardships. Tony Stark, for example, is an example of a well rounded character. His character arc from the beginning of Iron Man, where he’s a billionaire who makes weapons, to the end of Infinity War is remarkable.

Tony Stark starts out with a very ‘holier than thou’ attitude. He thinks he’s better than everyone because he’s smart, he has money, and he sleeps with a lot of women. But even during the first movie his character realizes that making weapons isn’t what he wants to do, and he moves on to cut off all manufacturing of bombs at Stark Industries. But he doesn’t stop developing as a character there. He has his flaws, such as hiring a 14 year old to fight Captain America, but he realizes that he has flaws. He becomes a nicer person throughout all of the movies, and he can look back at his mistakes and see where he went wrong. He’s all around a good character with flaws and perks, like every normal human being.

So this is why I think the Marvel Cinematic Universe is going to keep on going for a while. It’s widely popular, and it has good writing, good plots, and good characters, like every long-lasting piece of fiction.

That’s all for now

Read you later,

Sincerely, Parker

So we recently went to Oregon (again). This time it was to learn all about the Manhattan Project, which you can learn all about here! It was a really fun trip, although short compared to our other field schools. It also wasn’t as busy, which was nice. A lot of driving, though. So much time on the bus. So. Much.

One of our first stops on the trip was at Powell’s Books. For those of you who don’t know, Powell’s Books is the largest bookstore in the world. It takes up a whole block, has about three stories and every single book you could think of. We only got 45 minutes in there, and we took some great pictures of books that summed up our interests:

There was another picture of me with a book titled “All Of Those Explosions Were Someone Else’s Fault” But it has been lost to time and the fact that I accidentally deleted it.

But the book store was very cool. If I went back, I would totally get that mega edition of Deadpool comics I had my eye on.

We spent the night in Oregon, before heading up to the main event: Hanford, Washington. Can I just say: our hotel had a sponsorship with Chupa Chups. So, naturally, there was a large display of lollipops in the lobby, as you do. Our class took full advantage of that over the two nights we spent there. So, there must be a question on everyone’s mind: what’s the best Chupa Chup flavour? Allow me to give a list of every flavour, ranked best to worst (hint: root beer isn’t that great. Fight me, Willa)

That didn’t take me two hours to make.

Anyways, moving on:

We went to a place called Maryhill, Washington. Didn’t stay in the town for long, but we found the weirdest museum. Ever want to see a bunch of mini dolls, the Queen of Romania’s wedding dress and a forest fire in the same place? Washington Maryhill Museum has all of that! Seriously, it’s kind of weird. We had a task to find something in it that we found interesting and make a video about it. So, ask and yee shall receive:

Moving along, we went to the actual Hanford site! Twice, actually. The first time was on the Friday, where we got to learn about the history. That was really cool, because we learned all about what the town was like before the government came over and took it.

My favourite story is of the Bruggeman household. Pretty much they were German immigrants who moved to Hanford. When the government came to move them for the government facility, they said all American citizens have to move out. Naturally, being a German citizen… he didn’t move. His cookhouse, a little ways away from his house, is still half on the compound today.

We filmed a bit on location for the video, and then went to…

Have you ever heard of endless shrimp? It’s where, at Red Lobster, the waiters just don’t stop bringing shrimp unless you explicitly tell them to stop. It’s truly an experience. While most of our class was eating endless shrimp, we went to target! I got a giant skeleton!

The next day we went to the B reactor! This is where they actually made the plutonium to put in the atomic bombs. I didn’t get any pictures of it, but if you look closely on the walls, you can see where the scientists wrote down their math.

The rest of the day was spent driving, until we got back. Over all, it was a really fun trip! I’d definitely go back again, it was a really great way to learn about Hanford, and the workers who worked on the atomic bomb.

Anyways, until next time

Read you later

Sincerely, Parker

So we recently went to Oregon (again). But this time it wasn’t to learn about sea life and sleep on submarines. We were learning about the making of the Atomic Bomb (a kind of pointless name considering every bomb is made of atoms, making them all technically atomic bombs.)

So we made a whole video about the site that helped make the plutonium for the bombs, called Hanford. Hanford is a place in Washington, so we actually got to visit there to take shots on site! It was very interesting to learn about, and the video came out very well:

But anyways, lets get a bit of historical context so we can back track on the making of the video.

So, the Germans had just surrendered in WWII. Everyone is still fighting the Japanese, who refuse to surrender. Then FDR (President Roosevelt for those who are confused) died. So the next in line, Truman, has to step in to become President. And what does he get told on his first day?

That America’s been secretly working on atomic bombs and it’s his choice whether he wants to drop them on Japan.

Yeah, a kind of heavy decision to make after you’ve just been made President. So Truman had to deal with the burden of deciding whether or not to kill a multitude of people or risking losing the war. So Truman eventually decided to continue making the bomb.

The first Atomic Bomb, Little Boy, was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th. To learn more about that, we did Newsreels on that. Newsreels were shown normally in cinemas, as a bit of a news update. We recreated a newsreel about the dropping of the bomb:

A lot of people worked on the Manhattan Project. To help us get a better understanding into the personal lives, each person in our class created a character card on someone who worked on the Manhattan Project. I chose Lilli Hornig, who worked at Los Alamos, the main site that actually made the bombs:

Now, onto the big project: the video. The purpose of our video was to give five facts about Hanford, all within a basic theme. My group, consisting of Sam and Ethan, chose to focus on working there. How did people get recruited? What was the deal with secrecy? We were all curious about it, so we went ahead.

We got to film on site, which was very interesting! We got to go to the B Reactor, which created plutonium to help make the atomic bomb, as well as learn a bit about the history of Hanford.

So in the end: How did the atomic bomb affect those working at Hanford? Well, it certainly changed their lives. They barely knew what they were working on but they signed up anyways. Even after the bomb dropped, they were so proud of being a part of them. Today, the decision to drop the bomb becomes more controversial, people wondering if it was worth the lives lost. But the people at Hanford hold it with pride, proud to have helped America.

Anyways, I’ll see you guys next time

Read You Later

Sincerely, Parker