Women

Author's Note: Again I don't write these very often because I feel they are not necessary, and that your piece should be able to tell its own story. But, anyway I wrote this essay in Social Studies back in January, and decided that I liked it and would post it on my blog, so I hope you enjoy!

The Revolutionary War was a time of great change in the world, people, and how things were done. One of the biggest impacts on the revolutionary war was women. They were the voices that everyone didn’t want to here but they knew what to say and when to say it. A lot of people didn’t think women where very good at anything, and didn’t know what they were talking about. Women were treated more like “things” than actually human beings. But why was that? They don’t deserve that. So why were women treated so differently than women now, they weren’t much different.

Women in the Revolutionary War were treated with respect but they didn’t have a voice in anything. This is because women were considered too simple to understand complex military strategy during the American Revolution, me spoke freely around them. Thus, the made great spies, providing food and peddling wares to enemy camps while listening for important information (Pavao and Pavao). Women knew what they were doing during the revolutionary war, and no one understood that they were smarter than they gave them credit for.

For recreational purposes in the Revolutionary War women didn’t get to do a lot of things for fun. They found fun in cleaning and doing housework because that was all they knew. Women in this time period work, and have great times with their lives, but some just stay at home with their kids. This is kind of like the people of this time period the men worked and the women didn’t. Women were too busy cleaning and being housewives to truly do anything for fun (Women in the Revolutionary War ). Women in these times do have the time to have a good time and do not spend the bulk of their time at home. But this was just the way that women and their families did things.

Even though they didn’t get out of the house much. Most women during the Revolutionary War period got married at a young age. People in this time period get married before they turn 35 (Trunk). While in the Revolutionary War it was anywhere between 10-18 (Lavender).  A lot of people would find this strange, because most of them wouldn’t even consider getting married that young. A lot of the reasons would be being that they still have to go to school, they’re not ready, and a lot of them have a life beyond a housewife they are looking forward to. Not saying being a housewife is a bad thing to be but a lot of women have dreams after high school and college they would like to achieve before marriage.

Even though women weren’t treated with a lot of respect, didn’t have the time to do many things for fun, and got married at a young age. They did have a lot of roles in the Revolutionary War. Women marry, raise a family, manage their households efficiently, and, above all else, obey their husbands (Zeinert). Sounds like an interesting life to live. Most people in this time don’t do anything to strict guidelines, they live their lives more free with less rules. But back in this time women were treated strictly because no one thought they were able to handle a lot of harsh situations. Most women in this period lived either just as long as people now or died early from disease.

They lives they lived were very different but also a little similar to the way American women live now. Even though it is hard to understand why we are so different it is easy to see the similarities also. It is hard to realize how much we do have because we just have it. Whereas when you think about the women of the revolutionary war they didn’t have what we had. So it makes you stop and think about how much you actually have, and how little they had, and makes you actually want to be thankful for everything you have in life that they helped you get. 

Alone

Author's Note: This was are creative piece I wrote in the Writing Lab. It is about a boy who just moved north from down south and is standing in a field while it was snowing. But he feels alone, and it is not because he just feels sad about leaving he just truly is on his own. Let me know what you think:)

As the world spun around him, and the cold air blew, he was lost in a sea of white.

What in the world is this? He thought. 

Being as he had just moved north from the south, he had never seen snow in this sort of situation. There was no way out... he felt lost with no where to go. Like he was alone in the world, with no one around. In the dark there was nothing, no one, not anything at all. Just him in a wonderful world of white

As he stood in that field thinking, he thought about a lot of different things... about his life, about his family, about his new friends he made a couple of weeks ago, and about his old friends he had just left.

I feel alone he thought... like there is no one here to help me. No one understands anything at all, about me or about anything. Why do my parents treat me like i'm three years old with no where to go in life? Why do my friends new and old not treat me with the respect I deserve? Why is my life so complicated? These just must be one of those many different things we all must face... alone.

As he was standing in his winter wonderland. Almost like he was in a snow globe, a beautiful snow globe that contained everything about him. He was alone and not just because no one was there with him. But truly because no one understood him. This new place he was calling home was just as scary as he thought it was going to be.

Even though I feel alone... and I am alone... sometimes you may just have to do things on your own, right? 

Even though he never did find out that answer, he knew it was true, and he knew that he was going to have to learn to make it on his own. This is because he knew one day, he would be on his own, with out anyone there to guide him in the right direction.

Even though I am alone now. I won't be alone forever. He thought.

And this was held out to be true. He would not be alone forever.

But for now. At this point in time... he was alone. In his own little winter wonderland. 

Courage and Bravery

In the book Just Jane by William Lavender, Jane is a little kid who has moved from England to the American colonies, leaving part of her family behind to live with her aunt and uncle in the new world. She is hesitant about it all being that, her mother died when she was very young and her father had just died recently. So all she had left was her care taker Mrs. Morley, who eventually leaves her to help out an aunt's mother. Throughout this book Jane faces many moments when she needs either courage and/or bravery. Sometimes you just need a little courage and bravery to make it through life, and that's what Jane shows in this book. 

Have you ever moved? Either to a new house or school? Even a new state? Even if you haven't the feeling of just maybe having to move can be a little scary and sad. Imagine if you had to move across an ocean to a new home with people who you are related to, but have never met. I know I would not take that as just a new adventure, I would be very scared. Jane on the other hand was not, with her care taker Mrs. Morley by her side she felt as if it was just a new start after a rough year. Sometimes she was sad and sometimes she was happy about meeting the other members of her family, but on the other hand she also missed her father who had just passed away a couple of months before. It took a lot of courage for her to get on a boat for a long trip to a new land; she wasn't thrilled about it but she never showed that on the outside. Mrs. Morley was nervous about the whole situation so helping her stay calm and staying calm herself Jane realized that this might not be so bad after all.

Even though she went on this trip with Mrs. Morley saying she was never going to leave her side, it wasn't quite like that, once they actually got to the colonies. Mrs. Morley met a new friend, Jane's Aunt Harriet's mother, and they were the same age and had a lot in common. They loved each other’s company so much that Mrs. Morley decided she couldn't let the elderly lady live on her own. For Jane being alone in a big house with her aunt and uncle, who she was currently living with, was a little scary. But the bravery she showed when Mrs. Morley packed her bags and left was amazing. I would have never been able to just let go of someone that had never left my side since I was a little kid. Even though this was sad for Jane it helped her realized she wasn't really as alone as she felt. 

One of the books that shows the same theme in it, of courage and bravery, is The Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny have their parents killed in a fire. They moved in with several family members who all either left them or got murdered by the person who was after their family fortune. They showed a lot of courage through out these books by not backing down to Count Olaf, the murder after their fortune. They also showed bravery by taking on many challenges in all of the different places they had ended up. They showed bravery throughout this series because they were doing all of these things without someone who really cared about them. Their parents died and their family members were just taking them in so that they would have somewhere to live. But throughout these books they learn that they are truly on their own and the only things they really have are each other.

Another book that has the same theme as, Just Jane and The Series of Unfortunate Events, is Elephant Run by Roland Smith. Nick is a teenager who lives with his mother in London England. He gets sent away to his dad's elephant plantation when the Japanese start to take over England.  After a couple months at the plantation, the Japanese take the plantation over and hold him captive, and the Japanese take his dad to a prison camp. He had a lot of courage in this entire book because he has to sneak away from the Japanese soldiers and save his dad from dying in the prison camp without getting caught. Nick has a lot of bravery in this book because moving away from the person you have spent your entire life with to live with a parent you have meet once is really scary, not only for him but it could be for anyone.

Sometimes you don't need a lot of courage and bravery to do things in life, and sometimes it's not you who needs it. It's the people around you who need to know that you're not afraid. In all of these books, all of the people learned a lot about themselves. Their courage and bravery not only saved their lives, but made some situations less freighting for others. Even though sometimes you may be scared, having courage and bravery not only helps you, but showing it sometimes can help the people around you. 

Predicting

Not everyone can have everything their own way. Your house, your car, your family, even your friends. They all have many flaws that you will come across. Nick from Elephant Run by Roland Smith, is a teenager with his life ahead of him. But he can't have anything the way he wants it-- his parents got a divorce when he was very young. He lived with his mom in England, which I have to say was not a place he really wanted to be. The worst part of all though, was he rarely ever got to talk to his dad, until the Japanese started to take over England, so his mom sent him away to live with his father on an elephant plantation in the middle of the Burmese jungle. In this book I think that Nick will eventually learn to fit in with the people on the plantation, I think this is going to happen because he truly knows the meaning of not being able to have everything your own way. 

Nick living in the Burmese jungle was his mother's first worry. Her second worry was that he was never going to be able to fit in with the people there. It would have been true in the beginning but as I read more Nick really did learn that having everything handed to you by your mom is not going to get you very far in life. He also realized that where he was, that wasn't going to change. The people he was with, they weren't going to change. The most important thing though is that how much freedom he had there, was not going to change. He was practically stranded, almost like a puppet on strings, if the people there said jump he was to respond with how high. His dad however wasn't around much while Nick was there but towards the end his dad started to shine around more. Nick was starting to figure out that the people who lived here, this was their home, this was their life, and he was just thrown in it. He came to realize that he was thrown into someone else's life and he couldn't make them change to fit what he wanted but he had to change to fit in with their lifestyle. 

Nick never had to do anything for himself in England. Of course being that he was 13 his mother pretty much did it all for him. Once he got to Burma he made some friends and became a somewhat "real kid." He was learning how to fit in not as a "normal" kid but as someone who has lived on this plantation his whole life. By the end of the book if you would have saw him on the street you would have never realized it was the same person. Nick was realizing that he didn't need his mother to do everything for him, and he didn't need his father to always be there. There were some things that he could do on his own but he didn't know that because he had never tried it. A lot of teens are like that, if everything is given to you why change that. I have two cousins who are 25 and 22 who still live at home with their parents, now I can understand why, their mom gives them money, their dad always makes sure there's gas in their cars, there is always food in the house, and all their bills get paid. I believe that anyone would stay at home if that happened for them. But Nick didn't want that, he wanted to be able to know that he could do things on his own without that extra help from his parents. Coming to the realization that he had to make sure he blended in with everyone else and also that he didn't want the extra help from his parents on some things helped him to eventually fit in with the people of the plantation. 

Since I thought that Nick was going to learn how to fit in with the people of the plantation, it reminds me of the book I'd Tell You I Love You But Then I'd Have to Kill You. In this book Cammie Morgan goes to a spy school, she meets a boy named Josh who she starts to like. Every day her friends make her go into town by herself were she isn't supposed to go. Just like in Elephant Run were Nick is learning how to fit into a new culture, Cammie is trying to fit in with normal teenagers because she is not a normal teenager. Learning how to fit in with normal people took the help of Macey who was a normal teenager before she started coming to spy school. With her help Cammie learns how to make it seem like she is just a regular person just like everybody else. 

Even though you cannot get everything the way you want it, or the way that you want everything to be done. It isn't as hard to learn to fit in with other people as it seems it should be. Sometimes everyone overlooks what the true meaning of having friends and family are. Just because you don't like the way they are doesn't mean they are bad people. Even though Nick and Cammie learned how to fit in with the people who were very different from them, they knew that even though they were different it didn't make them bad people in any way, shape or form. 

Crisis

Her mom marched through the room like a bull ready to attack. She sat in the corner on a stool just bracing herself for the hit. It was scary and thoughts rushed through her head of different things she could do.

She thought, mom is obviously drunk. There is no way to look past that, and at this point in time she's a raging bull. There is no one who is here to help me, there is no one who can fix this, and there is no one out there who can save her. I'll just take it as it comes and think about it later. 

As she hit, hard like a brick wall, the girl was propelled into the wall like a sack of potatoes. She was never treated like a human being not since the day she turned three, that morning her mother had turned into a completely different person. That day was like darkness had fallen and the sun would never shine again. 

Darkness, the girl thought, is a very frightening place. 

She couldn't even remember what her mom was like before this "darkness" had taken her over, she didn't know what happened, and she didn't know why no one could stop it. 

Sometimes I feel like no one even knows it's there, except when mom and I are home alone.That's the only time the "darkness" ever shows its face. Why can no one else see that she has a problem. Is it only me? Or does everyone know it is happening and just don't have the guts to help me, help her?

That same day it all got worse as she got chucked like a sack of potatoes against the wall, her mom left. She never came back. When her dad got home from work, the phone rang... but on the other end was just screaming and then a loud noise. As her dad quickly dialed 9-1-1, squad cars showed up at the house. The sirens were so loud that the house shook and her ears rang. As the police told them the news... she realized she was finally free from it all.

The pain. The anger. The sadness. It was all finally gone.

Where does Bowling come From?

Author's Note: We wrote this in Language Arts to learn how to properly do a bibliography. 

It is unknown what year it was but a famous explorer, Finders Petrie, opened up a tomb and found “rocks” in the shape of what today are pins used in tenpin bowling. The game became so popular as royalty began to play it. The more it was played and the more popular it became, more adjustments were made to the rules and to the kind of materials they were using, boards became alleys and rocks became balls, but as it progressed into later years wood was then used and then actual “plastic” for the bowling balls. From all of this it is now a very popular game all over the world just from one guy opening up a tomb (History of Bowling ). 

Changing Lives

In the beginning of Elephant Run by Roland Smith, Nick the main character in the story is a thirteen year old, who is treated like he is an adult. Most teens feel like they are treated like either adults or three year-olds and are never treated the way they would like to be, but Nick really was treated as an adult. He lived with his mom in London, England and his dad owned a elephant plantation in the middle of a Burmese jungle, after the Japanese attacked London, his mom thought he would be safer with his dad... she was wrong. Nick was very different in the beginning of the book from the end, he didn't only change as an individual but he also changed the lives of everyone else on that plantation. 

Giving that everyone always said that he couldn't handle living on the plantation and actually working for what he got, was hard enough for him to take. But when he got there he was almost crushed by a large timber elephant, and didn't tell anyone. Until close to the end of the book I didn't understand quite why. He didn't want anyone to think that he couldn't handle it out in the middle of the jungle. This reminds me of a time when I was out on a four-wheeler with one of my cousin and got my leg cut on a tree, I had deep cuts in three places on my leg. I didn't want to tell anyone because I thought they were going to tell me that I was to hurt to continue to help with whatever we were doing that day, even though I knew I was hurt and that I shouldn't be helping. That was a bad mistake on my part but I was only seven how was I supposed to know my leg could get infected, and Nick even though he was thirteen didn't know that he had three broken ribs and that riding on the back of an elephant for three days afterwards would make him almost unable to move. His dad told him the first night he got to Burma to watch out for the elephants because they can kill you in many different ways. "...impale you with a tusk, stomp on you with their feet, throw you, bash you against a tree, crush your head in their mouths, do a headstand on your chest..." (40) Nick didn't know what to do, as children and as teens both make bad judgments on what you are and are not supposed to tell someone, when they tell you things not to do and you do them anyway.

Also in the beginning of Elephant Run Nick was just a kid, pale, chubby not much to him. Everyone could tell he wasn't going to last very long on the plantation if he didn't "man up." Japanese soldiers found him in the woods and were going to take over his fathers plantation. They dragged Nick back to the house. He was locked in a room with no food or water and was not aloud to talk to anyone. So he broke out, has any teenager ever not disobeyed their parents or guardians? I know I have and it's not a great feeling to feel on your own. Nick on the other hand was trying to save his father, when he broke out of the house and he also needed food and water. No one understood him and what he was going through in life, no one wanted to help him because they were to afraid but they still thought he wasn't going to survive in the wilderness on his own because he was still a "little kid."

Towards the end of the book Nick changed a lot, he was changing slowly throughout the book but towards the end he turned into a real man. As he was on a quest to save his dad he realized that to save him he would have to risk his own life to save his. He went into the "jail" that his father was in and found out they put him on burial duty because he was sick and if he died hopefully he would just die in one of the holes he was digging. He got help from Japanese soldiers who didn't want to be imprisoning these people who did nothing wrong. They buried his dad alive and left to give Nick just enough time to dig him up and get out of the "jail" before the other soldiers realized what was going on. He grew up a lot after that and figured out that family and friends is really all you need. I don't think a lot of people have realized that yet. Sometimes I think I haven't either and then I realize that people have it a lot worse than me, to the point were they don't even have family. I think every one takes that for granted because when it is just something you have always had once it's gone you realize sometimes you don't always get what you want, and that's what helped Nick grow up so much in the middle of that Burmese jungle.

Along the way to the end of the book he influenced a lot of people, more than I probably even remember. There was a girl, Mya, she was to afraid to live her own life after the Japanese came. She was treated like a puppet on strings, and it wasn't her fault but she let them. Nick helped her cut those strings he told her that she deserved more than this and that she should come with him and her great great grandfather to help save his dad and her brother. She cut those strings and disappeared with Hilltop (great great grandfather) and Nick to save her brother. Another person that he had a lot of influence on was his own father, who acted as if when you are working you can't have any fun. Which was okay with Nick because he got a lot of stuff done. But it was more like a chore to him than actually doing something fun because he made it that way. Nick got him to lighten up and have more fun when he was doing things so that it didn't seem like such a chore. Nick influenced a lot more people in this book in good ways and maybe sometimes bad but he always seemed to have an answer for everything they may not have been logical but they were still answers, and most importantly to the people on the plantation they were the right answers which they hadn't had many of.

All of these things that he did remind me of a character in a different book. Someone whose parents died and moved over 8 times. Someone whose journey influenced a lot of people that maybe their life wasn't so bad. Someone whose journey changed her more than anyone could ever imagine. Violet Baudelaire, from A Series of Unfortunate Events is a character much like Nick. As in Elephant Run Violet got moved when her parents died even though Nick's mom didn't die it was kid of the same situation, it was better for them somewhere else. As Nick wanted to save his dad, Violet wanted to make sure her two younger siblings were safe throughout the whole thing. Also Nick was being chased and was also captured by the Japanese, Violet was being chased by an evil villain, Count Olaf, even though she was not captured they were close to being multiple times throughout their lives. In many ways Nick and Violet are similar and in many ways they are different, but they both shared their wisdom and bravery in life with many people who needed their help. 

Nick didn't only change from the beginning to the end of the book on his own, but he also changed many other people's lives along the way. He realized many things, and didn't care what others thought about him. He knew he could make it in the Burmese jungle and he was determined to, and he did once he grew up and recognized that he needed his family and friends to help him along the way. He needed their support and even though he changed their lives, I don't think he would ever admit that they changed his too.