Religions Field Trip

On the field trip to Chinatown, we visited three places of worship, the Mosque, the Hindu Temple and the Chinese Temple. All three were similar but also different. Something that all the places of worship have in common is that they all have symbols and Gods that they worship. They all have monuments that they show their culture and religion. However, they worship their Gods in different ways. In the Mosque, people have a time where they all gather and pray together and when it is not that time, barely anyone was there. But, in the Chinese Temple, they come in at anytime and pray, buy joss paper, and burn incense by themselves. In the Hindu Temple, some people were there and they left offerings and prayed to he Gods. But when a time came, there were people who came and played music as a form of worship for the Gods. So the three places we visited all had Gods and Symbols to represent their religion but their form of worship and what they gave to the Gods were quite different.

Photo of the Chinese Temple

Photo of the Hindu Temple

Photo of the Mosque

I though the most interesting place of worship we visited on our Field Trip was the Hindu Temple. I think the Hindu Temple was the most interesting, for me, because it was very colorful and there were lots of different statues and paintings of Gods with a story behind each of them. I also found the prayer rooms in the Hindu Temple interesting.

Auschwitz Inmate

After reading the story, I cannot believe what happened and what they did to people who they thought of as they don’t belong here. I still don’t really see why people would do such a thing, especially the gassing bit. Everyone is different and it has been so as far back as the earliest history. At the camp, everyone told lies and treating people like they weren’t humans. They tortured them and they didn’t seem to mind but was happy doing that. They killed anyone they wanted without a very good or convincing reason but simply for the fact that they are different and don't belong with the others who were better.

Opposites

I picked these two pictures from our field trip to symbolize opposites because I think they represent what opposites are very well. In the first image (above), you can see the leaves are green and they look somewhat healthy to stand for that that plant is alive and well. In the second image (below), you can see the leaves are precisely the opposite of the other. The leaves are brown and they look dry and rotten illustrating that it is dead. The difference between the two photographs show that one is alive and one has died or is dead. Something living and something nonliving is the exact opposite of each other and so, these two pictures demonstrates opposites very well.

BISP Question: In My Opinion

Question: If you disagree with a rule, law or public policy, it is better to remain silent than to speak out and risk punishment.

My Opinion: Before I read the book, my opinion was that no, you should speak up if you disagree with a rule/law. However, after I started to read the book, I realize that no, in my point of view you shouldn’t. I say this because by reading the book to my understanding, I realized how much authority and power a person can have. I became aware that if someone made a rule or a law and you speak up to disagree with it, what difference could it make? The person who set the law has all the right and power, they don’t have time much less care for what you have to say. With somebody with a lot more authority than you, you could say one to many words wrong and be sentenced to death without knowing what just happened. A person with a huge amount of power and authority has control over the entire country whereas a person who is just part of the society is just one of thousands maybe millions of citizens. Chances are, there is probably a person who agrees with you, but would they help defend you? It only takes one order for you to be dead or tortured when you do an act that seems inappropriate. As you can see, my thinking about this topic has changed after I read the book.

A 'Good Life' ?

I think a ‘good life’ is the life that one would like to live. It is when you do things you love and are keen about. A good life is when you laugh and have fun. When you feel love and wanted. You have family and friends who cheer you up when you are sad. A ‘good life’ is also when you have something to look forward to do. When you remember good times and let things that make you down go. When you are healthy, well and have a home and family were you belong. You are not always stress and enjoy whatever you do. A ‘good life’ is doing things that you enjoy and doing what makes you happy. When you are content and appreciate what you've got is when your life would be the fullest. When you have hope and an ambition. You never give up even if things are not working out for you. A 'good life' is when you live your life your to the fullest. A 'good life' is also when you look ahead and prepare for the future instead of looking back and regretting things and mistakes you made.

¡My Identity!

Meet The Protagonist

The protagonist of the book (Journey to the River Sea ) is Maia Fielding. Maia is the type of girl who is studious and honest and a good academic. She is thoughtful and sweet and a little bit mischievous. If she has a fault, it is that she is perhaps too trusting and too optimistic. When she hears that she does indeed have family, and that they are happy for her to come and live with them, she is excited. But when it becomes clear she is heading for the Amazon, she becomes a bit nervous.

Physical Description- Maia has a pale triangular face and widely spaced dark eyes. Her ears, laid bare by the heavy rope of black hair, gave her an 'unprotected' look. Some people think Maia is pretty but Maia doesn't find it so. Fair and curly haired and pretty was what she longed to be. (Chapter 1 Pg. 7)

Personality- Maia is a clever, friendly, nice child and a brave one too. Maia is brave because she had fought hard to overcome the devastating blow of her parents' death in a train crash in Egypt two years ago. Maia had wept night after night under her pillow trying not to wake her friends up since she lives in the school along with others. Maia is thought to be nice by the school's headmaster and her sister, her guardian, her governess, Finn and Clovis. They think that if good fortune was to come her way, there was no who deserved it more than Maia. Maia is also friendly as she makes friends quickly. First with a homesick child actor whom she meets on the boat to Manaus, then with a mysterious Indian boy and finally with her governess. Maia is clever seeing she can read, write and speak English exceedingly proficiently as well as in maths. Overall, Maia is an attractive child. (Pg. 5, 7, 19, 50, 51)

Graphic Citation:

http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/EXID27365/images/Journey-to-the-River-Sea.jpg

The Start Of A Journey

Passage that describes the journey from the book:

(Maia Talking- Page 11 of Chapter One)

"When I go I shall travel on a boat of the Booth Line and it will take four weeks to go across the Atlantic, and then when I get to Brazil I still have to travel a thousand miles along the river between trees and lean over the water, and there will be scarlet birds and sandbanks and creatures like big guinea pigs called capa . . . capybaras which you can tame." "And after another two weeks on the boat I shall reach the city of Manaus, which is a beautiful place with a theater with a green and golden roof, and shops and hotels just like here, because the people who grew rubber out there became very rich and so they could build such a place even in the middle of the jungle . . . . And that is where I shall be met by Mr. and Mrs. Carter and by Beatrice and Gwendolyn-" "And after that I don't know, but it’s going to be all right."

This passage explains the journey Maia is going to travel in her own point of view. I think this passage explains her journey very well as she herself is telling it in her perspective. The passage clearly describes her journey from London to Brazil including how she is going to get there and what she might see there. Maia's journey is for the most part on the river and she would be on a boat because of that. This is an important description to the journey of Maia because it tells exactly what she is going to do and the route she is going to take to get to the journeys' end. However, this passage from the book does not illustrate what happens after she reaches Brazil. Maia would also be going through a personal journey inside herself. She is leaving her so called home in London to live with her relatives in Brazil so that is a personal challenge for her as well.

Graphic Citation:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_GNiAc2Inhg/TLmgNfNzChI/AAAAAAAAAGM/QoIAkDij5c/s1600/12134

67_59547311.jpg

Synopsis

My journey book is titled 'Journey To The River Sea' by Eva Ibbotson. It takes place in 1910. The main character is Maia who is tragically orphaned at 13 and has been sent from England to start a new life with distant relatives in Manaus, hundreds of miles up the Amazon in Brazil. An eccentric and mysterious governess who has secret reasons of her own for making the journey accompanies her. They both soon discover an exotic world bursting with adventures in the jungle.

Graphic Citation:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_I8rHYxWN3Ds/TIdX3wL9jdI/AAAAAAAADXA/F8pX5

zPb6jQ/s400/Journey+to+the+River+Sea.jpg