Chase

While i was watching the olympics earlier this week, i saw a game of hockey between Canada and the USA. I automatically assumed that Canada would win the game because after all, they did INVENT the game of Hockey. I started watching the game half-heartedly while doing my homework, and sometime later, looked up and noticed that the USA had a few points. I was happy because at least we had scored a few points and hadnt been smoked by the Canadiens like i expected. When i next looked up from my seven pages of History notes :/, i was excited to see that the USA was in the lead. When i looked at some of the players on the USA team, i realised that we had a pretty good team. Our team consisted of a lot of good players from the NHL, but other olympic teams also had recalled NHL players to play for their home countries team. As the USA team held onto the lead, the Canadien fans and team began to worry. What they thought would not be much of a challenge, clearly was better than what they had assumed. With Canada scoring a goal late in the game, the USA team rallied on final time to charge the Canadien defense and score another goal. The USA team ended up beating Canada 6-4, shocking many Canadien fans, and leaving team USA fans ecstatic. At the end of the game, all i could do for a minute was laugh. I feel bad for the Canadien team, but i just thought it was funny that team USA beat Canada at hockey, THE SPORT THEY INVENTED!!! Hahaha

I know that even though i am laughing at Canada for losing at their own sport, the USA has probably been beaten before at some of our sports.

Here is the rest of the summary of the book Salt.

The story of salt encompasses fields as disparate as engineering, religion, and food, all of which Kurlansky richly explores. Few endeavors have inspired more ingenuity than salt making, from the natural gas furnaces of ancient China to the drilling techniques that led to the age of petroleum, and salt revenues have funded some of the greatest public works in history, including the Erie Canal, and even cities (Syracuse, New York). Salt’s ability to preserve and to sustain life has made it a metaphorical symbol in all religions. Just as significantly, salt has shaped the history of foods like cheese, sauerkraut, olives, and more, and Kurlansky, an award-winning food writer, conveys how they have in turn molded civilization and eating habits the world over.
Salt is veined with colorful characters, from Li Bing, the Chinese bureaucrat who built the world’s first dam in 250 BC, to Pattillo Higgins and Anthony Lucas who, ignoring the advice of geologists, drilled an east Texas salt dome in 1901 and discovered an oil reserve so large it gave birth to the age of petroleum. From the sinking salt towns of Cheshire in England to the celebrated salt mine on Avery Island in Louisiana; from the remotest islands in the Caribbean where roads are made of salt to rural Sichaun province, where the last home-made soya sauce is made, Mark Kurlansky has produced a kaleidoscope of history, a multi-layered masterpiece that blends economic, scientific, political, religious, and culinary records into a rich and memorable tale.

Wow, i definitely did not know that much about salt. Hope this helped you understand the book more, i know i was a little confused about the topic at first.

Does anyone else have to read the book Salt? I didnt actually think the book would be about salt, but it is about salt and its history. I’ve read the beginning of the book and it is actually pretty cool what an impression salt has made on the world. Here is a brief summary of the book. Homer called salt a divine substance. Plato described it as especially dear to the gods. Today we take salt for granted, a common, inexpensive substance that seasons food or clears ice from roads, a word used casually in expressions (”salt of the earth,” take it with a grain of salt”) without appreciating their deeper meaning. However, as Mark Kurlansky so brilliantly relates in his world-encompassing new book, salt—the only rock we eat—has shaped civilization from the very beginning. Its story is a glittering, often surprising part of the history of mankind.      

I will finish the rest in another post.

Until about 100 years ago, when modern chemistry and geology revealed how prevalent it is, salt was one of the most sought-after commodities, and no wonder, for without it humans and animals could not live. Salt has often been considered so valuable that it served as currency, and it is still exchanged as such in places today. Demand for salt established the earliest trade routes, across unknown oceans and the remotest of deserts: the city of Jericho was founded almost 10,000 years ago as a salt trading center. Because of its worth, salt has provoked and financed some wars, and been a strategic element in others, such as the American Revolution and the Civil War. Salt taxes secured empires across Europe and Asia and have also inspired revolution (Gandhi’s salt march in 1930 began the overthrow of British rule in India); indeed, salt has been central to the age-old debate about the rights of government to tax and control economies.

One of my favorite things to do in december is to look at all the Christmas lights in my neighborhood. It is always entertaining to see all the houses with thousands of lights, a full set of blow-up reindeer, a life size santa clause on the roof, lights on every surface of their house, shimmering like a reflection in a pool (yea i know, a random cumulative sentence to take up space). Then you have the people that are anti- Christmas or any holiday and refuse to put up even one strand of lights. I like to believe that my family is in the middle of the two extremes, but i think my opinion is swayed. I cant wait to see what people do for next year.

Snow descends like night.

Trees shelter snow like a cloak

From the harsh sunlight.

Just a haiku that I wrote for class about snow.

A Day in the Life of Madison

Madison walked out of the Panera Bread, exhausted but happy to almost be home from a long day. Oh no, she thought silently to herself. She had just reminded herself of the tutoring sessions she had scheduled with her neighbor’s daughter on Tuesdays. Madison was a strong student. She made good grades, tried hard in her classes, had a job, and even volunteered sometimes as well. Even though she didn’t let it show to her family, she was tired of her rigorous schedule. Yet everyday, she still got up each morning and trudged through her day again and again.

After the hour long tutoring session, she walked the two minutes from the neighbor’s house back home. As soon as she walked in the door, she dropped off her books and was hit by a pang of hunger.

“Better get something to eat and sit down,” she said quietly to herself. Madison walked into the living room, only to find her parents missing and her brother watching TV on the couch.

“Why aren’t you doing your homework?” Madison said questioningly.

“Mom and dad left for dinner and I thought I could relax for a bit, that’s all,” Chase said coolly. He hadn’t had a day in his life that was as challenging as one of Madison’s average days, yet he still felt exhausted from a long day of school. Chase knew that he was supposed to be studying and so did Madison, but she played along anyway.

“Hey, I have an idea. Why don’t you and I study together?” she said affectionately.

Chase sighed, he knew that he had to study for his French test, but he didn’t really understand all the material.

Madison, picking up on his thoughts, had an idea. “After I make dinner, we can both help each other with homework,” said Madison. She knew he would say yes to her offer. Chase and Madison both shared the same interests in creating things ever since they were little- be it food dishes, coloring, or dressing up and putting on shows.

“Oh, okay,” he said reluctantly. He knew that Madison made great macaroni and cheese, and he did need help with French. “On one condition,” he said with a smile. “You have to make our secret recipe pasta!”

Madison and Chase both smiled at that. A long time ago, Madison had pretended to be a chef from the food network and make an exquisite, new food dish. She made the only food she knew how to make at the time, pasta. They had spent hours since laughing about the video they had created, an inside joke that they hadn’t used in years. Thanks to their old joke, they both were cheered up from their boring, uneventful days by attempting to recreate the dish on film to remember for another day.

“Madison, you always know how to make me laugh,” said Chase with a smile.

Up and down, it swirls and twirls

Frightening those, seldom not it flows

Though much whining, its surface ever shining

A shot snapped, your course now mapped

Places past, though unsurpassed

Of memoirs kept, even as I slept

Like a boat on the sea, all alone save for me

Though trouble may arise, demise does not visit me

The football game on Friday was exciting. Near the beginning of the game, Stone Bridge wasn’t doing their best. The team was struggling to get first downs and keep possession of the football. The team found their rhythm in the second quarter and started to pull forward. They managed to come back from their shaky start and win the game 56-0. The eighth grade band students came to the Stone Bridge game for eighth grade night. During eighth grade night, they join the marching band and play the national anthem and the fight song. They are also allowed to play stand tunes during the game. They weren’t as energetic as my eighth grade class, but the band needs more people. As we were walking into the stands after the fight song and national anthem, time seemed to stop as we felt rain start to fall on our shoulders, the grand stands making thudding noises as the fat raindrops fell. It was too bad that it started raining because the eighth graders were not allowed to stay for stand tunes. When it started to rain even harder than before, they had to leave the game. I felt sorry for them because they were only allowed to play the national anthem and the fight song, when the most fun I had last year was the stand tunes.