my thanksgiving

Before I went home for thanksgiving, I made up my mind to catch up on my sleep as much as i could. One night, we came home from dinner at 7 and weren't doing anything special, and I was feeling a little sleepy, so I decided I would go take a nap. Well, I ended up not waking up until 11 the next morning. I was quite proud of myself for going to bed so early, even though I didn't mean to. Normally, at school, I will not go to bed before two in the morning most nights. i noticed my family started acting a little suspicious around me, but i thought maybe I was imagining things. finally my sister approached me. She told me that the whole family thought I was depressed because I slept so long. I tried to convince her that I am not in fact depressed at all, then she asked me if I was hungover. I told her I wasn’t hungover either, but she still seemed a little suspicious. She said if I need to talk to her about anything, she’s here for me. I thanked her and asked her to leave me alone. Then I thought for a minute. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if my family thought I was depressed. But I realized that is a very evil thought to think, and I am a very bad person to think it. We had our thanksgiving meal which was quite scrumptious; we had lamb instead of turkey because my family doesn’t like to be conventional, I didn’t eat it but I’m sure it was yummy. I did have a lot of cheesecake, though. Mmmm cheesecake. Anyway, after dinner, we said what we are thankful for as we ate our cheesecake and pumpkin pie. yum. After that, my mom left for a few minutes and came back with a handful of tiny pieces of paper. She told my sister to take a number. My sister gave her a dirty look and told her to stop being weird. I was about to reach for her hand, but of course then my sister wanted to play. She took a number, then me, then the rest of us. The numbers corresponded with the gifts we were to receive. I was not very happy to see that my sister received an enormous makeup case, and I received a bath ball and two chocolates. Let me rephrase that. I was pissed off, it wasn’t fair she didn’t even want to play! I said so, but my dad just said “oh, Marsha Marsha Marsha!!” like he always does when I’m jealous of my sisters. I hate when he does that. But I didn’t want her stupid makeup case anyway. Ok, I got a little off-topic I see. But you see everything comes together. I am thankful that my family is a little “out there,” and that they care about me enough to think that I might be depressed. It’s touching really. And I am VERY thankful for cheesecake.

Turkey Day Fun

Thanksgiving is a time where we should think about and reflect upon the things in our life that nuture our soul. This is why I would like to tell whoever is lucky enough to read this the little adventure that my brother and I had. I hadn't seen my younger brother in quite a while and I have to admit it was rather touching to see him after three months of being away from him. He had grown a little and it seemed as though he was becoming more outgoing. I was really proud of him and I found myself being thankful for him. I realize now how important our growing up together was because I was able to teach him about everything I had gone through. For example I explained to him about preparing oatmeal and how important it is to have the right mixture of milk and oatmeal, and the amount of time in the microwave is vital. Things like this the real world never tells you and I'm glad I could be a big brother and teach him the lessons of the world.
Anyways, what I'm really trying to get at is that my brother is on his middle school soccer team. And so during the break I told him we needed to go kick the soccer ball around together at my high school practice field. It's a well-kept field and is quite accessible because we live close to it. One afternoon we decide to go up there. Since the field is only about a 3/4 mile we chose to walk up there because the weather was glorious. The sun was shining brillantly and the wind felt like opening up a fridgerator on a hot summer day. So we pack our cleats and put on our walking shoes and venture out into the wild streets. After 15 to 20 minutes of walking and carrying a ball I was ready to stretch my legs a little. So we walk up to the field and I tell my brother we have to climb over this fence that's about 6 feet tall. And my brother says,"I can't climb fences."

Week 11 Entries, due 27 November

After the Thanksgiving break, you should have plenty of stories about things that you are thankful for, or wish that you could be thankful for. For this entry, give us an example of your thankfulness, and try to make it as funny as possible. For some tips on how to do this, check out this primer (which is pronounced "PRIH-mer," not "PRAH-ee-mer" as you heard in lecture) at the Uncyclopedia. Humor is a tricky thing, but you are all clever people and I trust you'd rather have a good time trying to make us laugh, than have a routine time telling us the same tired Thanksgiving story your teachers have heard for many years now.

By the way, no one says your story has to be based in historical truth...

The first thing that comes to mind when I think about this subject is the praying ritual that the actors carried out during the middle of the play. I forget the grounds as to why they were praying but I just remember the whole ritual itself. There were two men that came out to the center of the stage and then 3 women in front of the men. I don't know if this had any significance. A third man came in while the others were already in the act of praying. As the men unveiled their yoga looking mat, they smoothly rolled them out onto the floor as if they had done this many times. I thought the women were going to do this at the same time as the men but it seemed as though everyone was going on their own time, and as they proceded it was evident that this was true because everyone was clearly praying at their own pace. I think that it showed how the religion doesn't stress a strict set of massly followed rules where everyone has to do something at the same time. With the way they were doing it in the play, they all sort of met at the same time but each one started at a little bit different time and kept their own pace. I also noticed how none of it was oral, everything was about certain movements. As I looked in our Islam book by Abdul Rauf he talks about how each of these movements represents a different message to God. Although these rituals are completly different than my own, I liked how the whole thing seemed relaxing like practicing yoga. The end.

names of the characters?

One thing in the play that I recognized as authentically Islamic was the devotion of the characters to their religion. there are many examples of this in that play. the example that i found especially interesting was when Ibrahim's wife (I don't remember her name) was in prison, and she found a towel to cover her head because her shawl was taken away from her. She defended her religion to Omar, and asked him to tell which direction she should pray in. Even in such difficult circumstances, she maintained her faith as a Muslim. Even though she prayed the wrong way, she was showing her devotion to God. One very dramatic and powerful scene was the scene in which the characters from all over (Syria, Austin, the woman's prison cell) pray to Allah at the same time in the same way. It represented the kinship that Muslims have as devoted followers of Islam. The only Muslim who did not show this same devotion was the character living in Austin (again, I forgot his name) who had somewhat lost the traditions he had practiced where he came from because it is not an integrated part of society to pray five times a day. This shows the oppression that many Muslims face in America.

Week 10 Entries

For this week, your blog entry will cover the subject of the play Kneeling Down at Noon and our background readings on Islam. Please identify some element of the play that you recognized as authentically Islamic, and describe how the play used that element for a dramatic purpose of some significance. For instance, if the element is a stage property (a prop), describe the significance of its use in furthering the drama. Same goes for actions, dialogue, costuming, sets, etc. You will want to consider what the drama was about (and possibly what drama is about more generally) in the course of analyzing your particular detail.

Hey Not As Late As Me

To learn is to understand. So far I understand that the severity of this blog will not be made known until the end of the year. I think the situation is quite unfortunate for us because the realization will not come until the end that these blogs do in fact hold some importance....I think. The reason I feel the need for such an argument over the weight these blogs have lies within the fact that I have no knowledge of the actual percentage that will be taken from our grade for these blogs. I do however enjoy them, a bit at least, sometimes they are a troubling inconvenience that when forgotten about make the student feel unorganized because they cannot remember to write a simple blog. However this feeling is countered with an unconcerning view that the blog does not matter much. This is all a result of the lack of information regarding the percentage of these blog's grades. It is to my pleasure to say though that I have agreed to accept this omission of grade weight from my teacher, ceding over my complete trust to the one and only Dr. Barndollar in the hope that everything will be okay. Judging the history of the lack of responsiveness from other students in the completion of these assignments, I think I will float in the same boat as them come judgement day. What I am really trying to say from all of this mayhem is well, what my whole intent for writing this blog is......well.......to be honest all I want to convey to the reader is that.............even though we all think we're the herione it's not true, we're all just an insignificant being living in a tax-and-spend America.

In order to get to his meeting, George had to pass through a parade. It was beginning to rain, and so he pulled out his umbrella. Slightly embarrassing because of its slightly enormous size as well as the fact that it was covered in pink polka dots, he hesitated to open it. But after the raindrops began to trickle down his face, George decided he most definitely did not want to let his brand new suit. Steadily, he walked on through the parade. There were clowns everywhere. He was beginning to think, ‘thank God, no one will notice my umbrella,’ until he heard an obnoxious laughter coming from one of the clowns, who was looking straight at him and pointing to his umbrella. “That’s quite a bumbershoot you have there, buddy! (laughter again)” George was enraged that a clown in harlequin pants would have the nerve to make fun of him, but he decided not to retaliate. After all, he had an important meeting to get to. He was meeting with the heads of the companies in the cartel of his wakeboarding business, and was to give an important presentation on the safety of wakeboarding equipment. He made his way through the crowds as the rain began to grow heavier, and water began to pump its way along rain gutters into the street. ‘What an odd day this is,’ he thought to himself.

Week 9 Blog Entries

This week, you will need to write a short creative entry of your choosing, whose only restriction is to use five prescribed words within the entry. Your set of words will be common to only a small group in the class, each of whom will write his or her own entry; different groups will use different word sets. The groups and sets are as follows:

Sean, Nicole, Gigi, Nichole, Adam: cartel, harlequin, wakeboarding, pump, bumbershoot
Stephanie, Celeste, Matt, Brooke: severity, heroine, agreed, tax-and-spend, learn
Amy, Hannah, Kaitlin, Kyle: lode, boor, stonewall, coach, metastasis
Jewel, Elise, Christine, Will: flask, flight, makeshift, beadle, sequential

All of these sets were generated at random from the Oxford English Dictionary online (well, I disqualified a few really obscure choices that came up...). Your commentary should focus on the accuracy and smoothness with which the writers use the required elements, and as usual on any other things you wish to reflect back to the entry author.