History of Halloween

Halloween started with the Celts 2,000 years ago. Their new year started on November 1st and they thought that the day before, the living world and the dead world came together and ghosts of the dead came back to Earth. This holiday was combined with two others when the Romans took over most of Ireland. One was Feralia, to commemorate the passing of the dead, and the second was to honor the goddess of fruits and trees, Pomona. Later Christianity spread to the Celts and the Pope made a holiday, All-Saints day to honor saints and martyrs and to replace the original holiday with a more Christian one.

Robert Swan

Robert Swan is the is the first person to walk to the north pole and the south pole. He is also the creator of 2041, a group that raises awareness about global warming. 2041 is the year that the Antarctic Treaty, which prevents mining in Antarctica, will be reviewed. He now leads expeditions to Antarctica and has a sailboat that goes around the world so he can give educational talks to people to raise awareness.

Elaine McArdle

A journalist named Elaine McArdle came to visit our school yesterday. Since she is a journalist, and this is interactive journalism, we went to see her. She talked about her job and I had known what a journalist was before but I had never heard one talk about it. It made journalism seem a lot more interesting and real to me. Before, I thought that it was just being given a topic and writing about it but now I know that you can look for your own story to submit. Also there is a lot of interaction with other people, doing interviews and finding out information . It's not just sitting alone in a room late at night, writing.

autobiography

To be a good journalist you have to understand other people and how they think.  But to do that you have to know yourself first.  One of the best ways to do that is to write an autobiography.  That's what  we're going to do in my interactive journalism class

soccer

Yeah we have a winning streak now.  2 games in a row.  The only two we've won all season.  It feels pretty good because I thought we were going to go the whole season without winning a game.  Its not going to last long though.  We have to play Lexington today so we're pretty much screwed.

The "Merchants of Cool" Documentary

We finished watching the documentary on the hunt for cool.  In the last couple segments, it talked about the midriff, the female version of the mook, and how teen rebellion is just another product.  A midriff is a sexualized character created by industries to be like an icon for teenage girls so that they will be more interested in the product.  An example of a midriff is Brittany Spears.

They also talked about Insane Clown Posse and Limp Bizkit and other "rage rock" bands that are really commercialized and made to make kids feel like they are understood, like they have something to rebel against.  They feel like they are they are the only ones listening to the music even though it has become mainstream. 

my weekend

Not too exciting.  I slept for most of it.  That was probably the best part of it.  On saturday I got up at about 3:30 and then went to the Revolution game about a hour later.  We got burgers and drinks in the parking lot which were pretty sick even though I had just eaten a big breakfast.  We sat in the second row behind one of the goals and had a good view of the game.  If you're sitting higher up, it's like watching it on tv so there isn't any point in going.  it was a pretty good game with 4 yellows in the first 20 minutes.  One was complete bs, the ref called Smith for a dive and somebody from the crowd threw a beer bottle on the field and the security got stepped up after that.  The Revs were behind  2-0 and then came back and tied it so that got the crowd pumped.  But they couldn't win and we left quickly because it was cold