Nico's Blog

This week I picked up on my sign language and my goal was to be able to learn basic phrases that I can use. My goal was accomplished at the end of the week and some of the phrases that I learned were, “Can I have a cookie”, “Can I have chocolate”,and “Do you want a chair to sit down in”. Something that helped me learn these phrases was a website that would show someone doing the signs when I put it what I wanted to learn. With every sign the person did I copied, and then I put them all together in the end to make the phrases that I learned. When trying to get to my goal I didn’t really face any struggles, so I would have to say that this week was pretty successful. Next week I want to be able to sign different kinds of animals and numbers which I where I’ll pick up next.

My favorite room in my home is my bedroom, and here are three reasons why. First, my bed with three blanket and a couple pillows is in it and I sleep on it every night and just relax sometimes when I’m tired. Second, my room is where I play my video games when I’m bored and I usually play them with friends to make it even more fun. Lastly, I have a mini hoop that I usually play with from time to time every day which also keeps me entertained.

For my 20% project I am going to be learning ASL which is otherwise known as American Sign Language. This week my goal was to be able to learn and remember the alphabet in sign language. I did indeed manage to accomplish the goal I set for myself and along with other little words or phrases. Some examples of those phrases are “Thank you” and “Good morning”. Some things that helped me learn this were websites that had the images of all the letters in the alphabet and a website that had a guy showing different phrases and how to do them. A struggle that I had to face was just remembering the alphabet in sign language, and to fix this I just kept practicing every chance that I could without looking at a reference, but in the end I did manage to remember it all without needing to look at a picture. Next week I want to learn more phrases that I can possibly use and along with different items that you use in your everyday life.

After Tim cheese spun the block on John Pork everything went down. Simon claw tried to catch Marvin Beak lacking but Marvin Beak can never be caught, and not too long after Bob Pork, John Pork’s brother, tried to get revenge on his brother by getting rid of Tim Cheese’s cheese dealer, Quin FiggleGiggleTooth. After losing his cheese dealer Tim Cheese didn’t know what to do, so he went to his brother, Jonathon Cheddar, for some help. Jonathon Cheddar advised him to stay low until he finds a new cheese dealer, as no one can find out he doesn’t have any cheese. Tim Cheese used to go out a lot with his bodyguard, Jaquavious Tusk, the strongest guy he could find to protect him wherever he went, but now Tim Cheese doesn’t even dare to leave his cheddar mansion. This was how the Pork’s started to overrule the Cheese and became the ones in carge.

This month I read and finished the book, Big Bad Ironclad by Nathan Hale.

The books continues with the Monitor fighting to stay on the waters surface but the crew decides to abandon the ship and get everybody onto the tugboat. The books then cuts to Neptune being informed that the South have made another ironclad and she is called the Ablemarle which is just as big and bad as the Merrimack. John Ericsson wants to send in more monitors but Neptune tells John, “We could—if she wasn’t in the Ablemarle Sound. It’s blocked in with sandbars that no monitor could get over.” William Cushing then walks in on them and assures them that he has a plan to blow up the Ablemarle. John, Neptune, and Foxy all ask William, “HOW?” And William responds to them with, “With a bomb and a stick!” All three of them are confused by William’s idea but William tells them that the bottom of ironclads are always weak underneath as the armor only covers the parts above water on the ironclad. William’s full plan is to paddle up to the Ablemarle and use a long stick with the bomb attached to the end of it it to blow the boat up. Neptune tells William that he’s the only person he knows that would do something so brave but so stupid. John gets the things that Ailliams needs and he starts his plan with a crew. As William and his crew enter the Ablemarle Sound they also enter enemy territory at the same time and bump into runaway slaves swimming away. The runaways tell them that there are loads of guards at the shipwreck, but William asks, “The shipwreck?” The runaways then tell them that the U.S.S Southfield got rammed into and sunk by the Ablemarle. As the crew get closer to the ironclad they also get quieter to not alert any solder, although the silence is interrupted when a crew whisper that there’s a dog on the ship, they try to keep the dog quiet but it’s not use, the dog then barks loudly alerting a nearby soldier. The alerted soldier spots the crew and William yells out, “FULL SPEED AHEAD!” As they get closer William gets ready to get the bomb in place, and once he does he light the bomb and the ship blows up. He then swims to shore without a solider finding him and sneaks onto the enemy base where he finds a slave and asks him if he can find out what happened to the Ablemarle for twenty dollars. The slave assures him that he doesn’t need to find out as everybody already knows that the Ablemarle was blown up and that he was the only one to not get captured. William’s sneaks into a tree to wait for some soldier to leave a boat, and when they do leave William’s sneaks onto the small rowboat and leaves the Ablemarle Sound and was rowing for a day and a half until allies found him sleeping in his boat. William’s mumbles that he blew up the ironclad and with that he ended the war, the war that also ended slavery.

I am really enjoying this book so far and would recommend it to people who love books that are packed with both action and an example of this is when both the Monitor and the Merrimack were fighting each other. I would also recommend this to people who like the history about America throughout the years as well as the other books from this author.

My favorite character from this book would have to be William Cushing and another of his traits is smart. An example of this is when William said, “These ironclads are weak underneath, right?” This shows that he knows the ships weak spots even though he has never worked a day in his life building ironclads, let alone boats.

My favorite quote from the book is when Neptune said, “Cushing, you are the only person I know brave enough, lucky enough, and stupid enough to pull this off.” This quote is meaningful to me because no matter what you are like, all that matters is that you can do it and come out fine.

Lebron James, Alvin the chipmunk, and Scooby Doo are the people I would love to invite to dinner. The first person I would invite to dinner with me would be Lebron James, he is LeGoat at basketball, and the reason I would invite is because he is just a silly guy at times. The second person I would invite to dinner is Alvin the chipmunk because if the dinner needs a bit of music he’s on that as he is a singing chipmunk. The last person I would invite to dinner would be Scooby Doo because while we are eating he can tell us stories when he was looking for ghosts.

If I could pick any job in the world I would choose to be a Lawyer for three reasons. For the first reason I would want this job would be because it pays pretty good money and that would help me buy food and the stuff that I need such as maybe a house or a car. Secondly, I can help people get out of trouble as that’s really what everyone wants and I can end a case simply with, “For your information your Honor, you weren’t really there.”.  Lastly, being a Lawyer can pay off as the people I helped in the past could then help me in the present when I need it.

One day I decided to try a honey packet, and when I did it somehow turned me invisible which was a letdown. Since I was invisible I decided to do some things that I found fun. First thing I decided to do was try all the foods I could find as no one would make me pay for them because they wouldn’t even know I was there, I would do this because I would want to see what I like and I could get them when I become visible.  Lastly I would walk around to see everything that I can look at in both night and day as I wouldn’t have to worry about anything bad happening to me, I would do this because like why not explore a little bit.

This month I am continuing to read the book Big Bad Ironclad by Nathan Hale. I have not finished reading it and I am currently on page 101.

The story continues with the captain of the Virginia being escorted out of the ship as he needs to heal his leg and says, “I wish I could stay on board!”, and a navy soldier responded with “We will do you proud, captain.”. As the Virginia is closing in on the Minnesota, the South’s ironclad comes in to save the Minnesota from being shot. The South starts to shoot their cannons towards the Virginia, and they keep shooting relentlessly. The Virginia can’t fight back as they are too large and heavy to turn around as the South is circling around the Virginia because of the fact they are smaller making them faster. Although the Virginia is covered by 4 inches of metal they still take bits of damage little by little. Both ships say, “We are totally invincible!!”, as the Virginia takes little to no damage and the South is not taking any shots. The Virginia stops shooting as they are wasting ammo and decides to ram into them instead, the South manage to get away with only being scratched by the ram. While Captain Worden, the captain of the South’s ironclad, is looking outside with the driver, a cannonball is shot directly at his face. Thankfully the cannonball didn’t hit him as the iron protects him, he was still blasted by it though. After a while the Virginia leaves as they completed their mission of destroying lots of ships for a test run and announce that they won, but the south also said that they won as their mission was to drive away the virginia. We learn that the South’s ship is named the Monitor and there is a very large group of people at the docks celebrating the victory of the Monitor Boys, the name of the crew that drove away the Virginia. The book then transitions to William Cushing which is currently capturing a whole town and yells, “I claim this town for Abe Lincoln!”, and they raise the flag of America. William tells his group to confiscate any important messages or letters and guns lying around. A group of slaves tell William that they want to be confiscated and he says they are being confiscated with a smile on his face, and he also confiscates two blockade-runner ships in the port. As they are leaving William’s group spot a rebel base but thankfully the Rebels don’t spot them, almost out of the island they get stuck as the tide shallows. Right there the Rebels spot them and start attacking, and William being the brave Captain he is, he says that he’ll stay back and hold off the rebels while his group gets on the other ships to escape. One of the men asks William, “Alone, sir?”, and William responds with, “No—any volunteers wanna stay?” and all of his men volunteer and they fight back and escape.

I am really enjoying this book so far and would recommend it to people who love books that are packed with both action and history about America throughout the years as well as the other books from this author.

My favorite character is still William Cushing and one of his traits is courage. An example of this is when he says, “I’ll stay back and keep them off until you get away!” This shows that he is willing to sacrifice himself to save his party so they can fight for another day.

My favorite quote in the book is when William Cushing’s party all said! “I’ll stay!” when William asked for any volunteers to stay behind and fight with him. This quote is meaningful to me because this shows that his men are willing to die with their Captain which is something that is good to have in a friend.

This is the daily life of someone on an abandoned island. First off, I got here after falling off a fishing boat going unnoticed from everyone else and ended up on the island I live on right now. I am currently living in a house that I built by the seashore which is how I get most of my food in the day. My daily routine starts with me checking around my house to see if anything broke after I wake up, I then go outside to check what the weather is currently like to see if I will have to be careful, after that I get ready to get some fish for the rest of the day and I also take some seat water and purify it to drinkable water, I continue with checking the weather until the day end for me to do the same routine all over again. The island I live on is pretty nice as there are lots of trees filled with coconuts and reefs around the shore for fish that I eat, the island is very abundant in vegetation, and the island itself is very pretty.