Caitlin's Blog

Don’t forget the date.

caitlinmg — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 16:13:15 +0000

The Hartford Convention was held from December 15, 1814 to January 4, 1814 but, my textbook doesn’t include that. I think that when an event was in history is a key piece of information in a history textbook. Don’t you? To sum it up the Hartford Convention was a group of federalists, from New England, gathering in Hartford, CT who were protesting the War of 1812 and who just wanted the US to withdraw form it all together. They wanted to New England to withdraw from the US but, before they could go to Madison about that, they got word that the war had ended. After that, people involved in the Hartford Convention were laughed at, accused of treason and lost lost a lot of political power. Now I think My textbook did a pretty good job covering it, except for the fact that it didn’t include when the convention was. There really is no way to make a history textbook interesting to someone in middle school but, I think it would be better if it just gave the summary instead of the long paragraphs of info, most of which isn’t even that important. My textbook didn’t include a picture for the section on the Hartford Convention but, I think that I picture would be a really good thing to include, if I could find one on the websites that we are aloud to use. I probably get a picture of a group of federalists talking or of the capital building in Hartford, CT.

He lead them to freedom.

caitlinmg — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 20:04:32 +0000

I think that Martin Luther King JR. was a great leader in our history because he was courageous, honest and he was determined. He used all of these great qualities that he had when he was fighting for the rights and freedom for blacks. I think he was courageous just for standing up against the whites that were biased against them just because of the color of their skin. He was always honest because gave his famous speeches and told everyone what he thought and what they should to stand up for themselves. He said what he believed and didn’t really care what he consequences were, as long as his opinions were out there. He was very determined in his quest for equal rights between whites and blacks, he was determined to lead this huge group of people that agreed with him and that also wanted to be equal to everyone else in the world.

Matter of Opinion.

caitlinmg — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 21:50:38 +0000

“Do great leaders make history? or does history make great leaders?” Even though these questions are just flipped they both are very different and its hard to decide which is right. Its probably just a matter of opinion because everyone will probably think differently about this quote. I think that great leaders make great history because for example, without George Washington, our history would probably be different and we would probably be in a different place than we are now. How or when would we have crossed the Delaware River without him? Would we have beat the Hessians? Who would have been our first President? as you can see these things might not have happened without George Washington, i don’t think they would be the same either because Washington is iconic for theses times in history.

Small in Size. Big in History.

caitlinmg — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 01:21:51 +0000

I didn’t really like the unit that we did on significant objects because I didn’t learn that much. We were assigned a topic, mine was Washington’s farewell address, and we had to find an object that could be significant to this topic. Then we had to right a story about the topic and incorporate our object into the story. My group had a taper candle that George Washington supposedly wrote his farewell address by. We had to present our story to a live audience that could bid on our objects. All of these stories had historical facts in them but we also weaved in some things that didn’t happen but, could have. The bidders knew that these stories were fake but they bid anyway because all the money is going to charity that my class works with called Clinique Monique. I don’t think this was a good way to learn about these topics because I only learned about George Washington’s farewell address and I don’t know anything about the other topics, I don’t even know what the other topics are. Here is a link to my story.

Do they follow you?

caitlinmg — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 14:45:30 +0000

I think a leader needs to be a courageous person because they need to be able to be fearless when leading others, they also need to be well liked because they need to be able to stand up and have people actually listen to them. I think anyone can be a leader, they can be born a leader or they can make themselves into a leader if there is something or someone they want to stand up and fight against. I am not a leader and never have been, im to quiet around people I don’t know and I’m not courageous enough to stand up and fight against a cause or person. I have followed a leader when I was doing gymnastics because we had this girl Alyssa on the team that really helped us a lot to win meets because she was so good, she was kind of like our unofficial team captain. Also my coaches because they really motivated us tot do good before our meets, also because they were gymnasts themselves so during practices we would listen to everything they said and it would make us better gymnasts.

holding memories…

caitlinmg — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 20:39:41 +0000

This is the medal that I won at my very first gymnastics meet and it is special to me because it holds the memory of the that competition. I won it for 3rd place on Vault, and my score was a 9.00. I also remember this meet because it was really long because the meet directors delayed the award ceremony for about an hour. My team and I were just fooling around after we finished all our events, it was actually really fun but we were at the arena really late. Eventually we proceeded with the awards and I got my medals, we didn’t end up leaving until around 10:30.

What If……

caitlinmg — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 22:10:13 +0000

What if you weren’t afraid to take risks? If people weren’t afraid to take risks then we would have a lot more daredevils in the world. I’m not just talking about people doing stupid things that could potentially kill them, like Johnny Knoxville, but taking risks with yourself and bot being afraid to be different from everyone else. If you could take a risk, and be different then you would have to not care what other people thought about you, you would just have to be yourself. I think that most people in the world are afraid to be different and stand apart from everyone else. There are those people that do take risks everyday and do stupid things, most of them have their own shows like Jackass, Nitro Circus, Viva la Bam and the Dudesons in America. Its fun to watch those people take risks with these stunts that are potentially dangerous, but its not fun to watch them get hurt. I think that if people took more dangerous risks that we would need a lot more hospitals in the US.

1794 vs. 1997

caitlinmg — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 21:34:58 +0000

Did you know that one of the original six ships from the naval act of 1794 is still afloat and working? Well, it is the USS Constitution, is the oldest US naval ship still working. This ship was launched in October 21, 1797. A newer US naval ship called the USS Connecticut was launched on September 1, 1997. These ships are very different first of all the USS Connecticut is a submarine and the USS Constitution is a frigate. Also, these ships were both designed by different people, off course because they were built 200 years apart. The builders of the USS Constitution were Edmund Hartt’s Shipyard and the builders off the USS Connecticut were General Dynamics Electric Boat. I don’t really know why I picked these two ships if I can’t find a anything in similar between them. A final difference is that the USS Constitution currently acts as an educational tool, it is open to tours and is used in educational activities and ceremonies, the USS Connecticut is currently just sitting in a dock in Puget Sound in Washington(what a lazy ship my state has).

This is the USS Constitution

This is the USS Connecticut

Is it true?

caitlinmg — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 22:23:22 +0000

Most people know the story about George Washington and the cherry tree. When he was a little boy he was given a hatchet and he was so excited, and started chopping down everything in sight. One day he came a cross a cherry tree that was just so beautiful, that he had to try out his new hatchet on this. Turns out that this cherry tree was his fathers favorite one and when his father asked if he had cut it down he replied “I can not tell a lie father, you know I can not tell a lie. I cut it with my hatchet.”

Did George Washington really cut down the cherry tree? I don’t think he did because I found a website that said that an author named Mason Locke Weems created the story. I think that he just created the story to teach kids that you should always be honest, event if you think that it might get you in trouble. Anyways, who would trust a little boy with a hatchet, obviously he would chop down things he wasn’t supposed to.

elastic is flexible.

caitlinmg — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 21:52:16 +0000

The elastic clause was intended to be used when issues came up that the original writers of the Constitution didn’t think of. It is important because it lets the government be flexible in dealing with situations that haven’t had to be dealt with before. Issues such as the Internet, space travel and steroid use are things that obviously weren’t put into the constitution but, our government has to deal with these things and the elastic clause lets them do that. I believe that we should be loose with the Constitution because times are very different now than when the original Constitution was written and we shouldn’t have to follow the same rules they did very strictly because some of them don’t apply anymore. It would probably be a lot harder to deal with the Constitution strictly because most of the issues that come up weren’t mentioned in it. I believe that the government should deal with it how they think is right, we elected all of them so we should be able to trust them to do what is right.