This semester my ninth grade English class is reading the play, Hamlet by William Shakespeare.  Every night we read a scene from the play, and the next day discuss it as a class with our teachers, Mr. Chase and Ms Weinraub.  As a class, we talk about things like themes, plot changes, and characters in Hamlet. 

Hamlet is something that is going to drive me officially insane. As if the gods of literature could come down and smite me as a reader, they have indeed. It's a very difficult book to NOT become completely absorbed in. As I left the hallowed pages of Hamlet one day, I honestly felt the compelling urge to randomly stab curtains and here the strangely funny words: "O, I am slain."

Here's a lesson kids: If you get to act five, you will, and I assure you that you will want to stab curtains.

In class, I must confess, (I feel the urge to after the failed attempt by Claudius eventually leads to his downfall), that the in class discussions are bent on the single action of making the students under the tutalege of Mr. Chase even more mad about Hamlet. (Pun intended; sometimes we just hate the stupid freakin' hard to read, even harder to comprehend and make conclusions from book.) 

I would like to say that I've managed to learn something about the book through the myriad of topics that our discussions discuss, and that the inter-group question and answer sessions have been helpful, but, as you guessed it, they have made the class more mad. Maybe Hamlet is, after all, a tragedy about madness. 

My experiences in the ILP have felt random a few times before.  First I had to make my own RPG Maker game, and now I am trying to work on Dr. Java at a special college.  So, it's not always clear to me.  The old ILP jobs weren't very fun, and the new ones are, but they are hard and confusing.  But I still think this is better than the old ILP.

The Kelly Writers House at The University of Penn is an actual 13-room house at 3805 Locust Walk on Penn's campus that is a center for writers of all kinds from Penn and the Philadelphia area. I served there as a temp (helping with various activities and chores around The House) and I sat in on many of The House's writing classes. Check out a link here: http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/about/

In March, I switched ILP's and I am currently in SLA's Law Class held in Rochester's room on Wednesday. We learn about the Constitution, its Ammendments, and an overall view of the Court System. Class is from around 1:30 to 2:30 and then we have an hour to complete the homework that is given to us at the end of class.

After watching the video, I found another positive aspect of being able to own guns.  In Aftrica, at the time, a lot of violence took place.  Especially the women getting raped.  If the women had access to weaponry, they would defend themselves more easily.  They would threaten to kill their attackers, or if that doesn't work, go ahead and do it.  Then, they would leave them alone.  But since they had no weapons, they were completely defenceless.

In "Book XIV " of The Odyssey, Odysseus is visiting with the Swine Herder, or "Pigman" as Lena suggested.

Because of Athena's supernatural transformation of Ody in "Book 13," he is still disguised as a gnarled old man (see picture at right).

As it turns out, this serves him well. Because of his appearance, Ody is able to get Pigman's true feelings. The Pigman tells Ody that his master was both "Master" and "Brother." (xiv.168)

The class decided this was a good thing because:

• If Pigman is speaking highly of Ody even though he thinks Ody's. dead, it show he truly respects him. Shows loyalty.
• How his lowest servants "remember" him speaks very highly of Ody's character. This might set Ody. apart from other kings.
• If he (Pigman) wasn't really loyal he would say negative things to the "beggar." -M. Doe

Megan also made another connection, "I wouldn't do what they are doing here. You can tell they trusted each other a lot more then. People were more social because they didn't have phones or stuff like that."

This led to a whole class discussion of how Homer was trying to teach people to treat visitors or other those in need. The majority of the class stood to signal they had been asked for money by someone on the street. The majority of the standing students also signaled they had said no or would have said no if they'd had money.

Missy said, "These days, if a stranger comes up to you for money for 'a train ticket,' you can tell by their clothes that they really don't want a train ticket. In 'their' days, everyone looked out for each other and took care of each other. Now, we don't look out for each other as much."

Several students commented that they had been asked for money by people they later saw buying drugs or alcohol. Qianna even commented, "The homeless people I saw looked like they had money. They took food from a friend and threw it on the floor because they wanted it to buy drugs."

When asked what might be the lesson Homer was trying to teach, the students said:

Patricia – Ody wasn’t his true self. Sometimes homeless people aren’t their true identity.
L. Bruce – Those type of people can teach you a lesson. (Something about equalizing people’s experiences.)
Ryan – Strangers are good and they could teach you a lot, and you never know who strangers are.
Harding – Go out and meet people, but be careful whom you talk to.
Roberto – Be accepting and treat others how you would want to be treated.
Megan – Even if you’re a bum or you’re really rich, we’re all from Zeus. From talking to bums, they’re still people. Sometimes they do have good intentions. We’re told not to talk to strangers because they could be dangerous. Some have good intentions, sometimes they don’t.

Other important quotes were:

xiv.173

xiv.70-78

xiv.197

xiv.168

xiv.66

The next scribe is: Lena B.