The Last Post

Hello people. It has been a year since I last wrote you. I'm 11 now, I am leaving the 6th grade in less than 2 months. This is my last blog post. This blog has been a definitive archive of my homeschooling life, and the times that we had in New York. But times have changed. I am starting the 7th grade. The last 2 blog posts were months apart as well, and it's time to move on as my life now is so different from the life I have now. Not better, just very, very different. I will keep this blog up to remember the life and times I had homeschooling as a younger kid. I actually wrote my first post at 6 years old, almost half my life ago. This blog has been a part of my homeschooling life for ages, but just like homeschooling, it's time to let it go. So goodbye people, I'll be in touch.

- Jackson

An overall update. Jun 14 2012

Oh blog, I have not forgotten you. We have been so busy over the past few months, first of all: We bought a house! For real this time! Nobody can take us away! (Unless we don't pay our bills...) It's a lot smaller than our old one, but I like it way more. And it's ours! It's June, summer has arrived. I'm going to Folk Roots camp next week. It's a camp run by the ACA, and you get to participate in cajun and creole activities, like fishing, learning to make boudin! (A cajun sausage, sometimes spicy) And we're all learning an instrument! We have a choice of fiddle, guitar or accordion. I chose accordion. Watching tutorials on youtube. I'm also doing Summer Shakespeare, we're preforming Love's Labor's Lost in July. I don't know what part I'm getting yet. My room is 100% unpacked! Next comes hanging stuff.

Thanks for reading my overall update!
Jackson

Summer is falling into place.

I know what you're thinking.

"Jackson, why are you posting about summer? It's March! Some of us are still in winter coats!" And the answer to that question is I'm not posting about summer being here, only the idea of what summer is going to be.

Remember the play I did last month and have been talking about for the past 2 posts? Well I'm doing it again this summer. I'm gonna be in the same company I was in last time. But this one is the waaay bigger performance. It's a Shakespeare play, "Love's Labor's Lost" to be exact.  At the ACA in July 2012. 

So other than that, were gonna be at Red la Reels a lot. Reds is the health club that we go to. Like the YMCA. 

What are you guys gonna do this summer?  Post in the comment area below.

See you next time,

Jackson

Hamlet: Prince of puddles.

Hamlet and Ophelia.

Hello everybody! I'm here with another Youth series performance! It is an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Hamlet like you've never seen it before! Written for a much younger crowd than the original. Hamlet: prince of puddles turns a terrible tragedy into a hilarious comedy.

You see, Hamlet is in a bit of a predicament.
His father, King Hamlet died unexpectedly. As everybody was mourning, the queen decided to marry the late king's brother. Who in Hamlet's opinion, is a large butthead. Not to mention that his long lushus hair he is so proud of is fake!

So with the help of his girlfriend Ophelia, he must avenge his father! But wait, there is one other complication! Ophelia's father banned her from speaking to Hamlet.
What will he do?!

So I give this play a definite 100%! If you live in the Lafayette area and would like to see it, we have 2 more shows open to the public. 


Goodbye all blog readers,
Jackson

The flapping of a butterfly's wings... and more.

Hallo! Jackson here!
It's been a long time! How have you guys been doing? Anything fun?
Well I've been in a play, celebrated a birthday, got a new microscope, celebrated Mardi Gras, and oh yeah, moved since the last update. (Vlogs don't count)

So, back to the play:
As you may well know, the play was called "The flapping of a butterfly's wings may cause a tsunami half-way around the world".  And yes, I did have a speaking part. I played a little 10-year old boy named Jackson.
This is the only picture I could find:

I'm the one onstage who is not wearing a hat.

On to the next thing, I just turned 10 years old!
This year was a big B-day party 'cause I have a big one every 5 years. So I had a big 5th birthday and will have a big 15th birthday.
This year was a bring a piece of NYC to Louisiana. We had an art wall (A huge piece of paper on the wall) and some bagels and cream cheese!

I got a microscope for my birthday from Mama and Daddy, and it's probably the best gift Iv'e ever gotten! It goes up to 2,000x magnification! That's around 1,000 times more magnification than a average magnifying glass.
I also got a microscope camera from Mimi, but it didn't work so we sent it back and their sending us a new one.

This Mardi Gras was pretty uneventful, Mama got really sick, so she couldn't go to any of the parades.  We caught a lot of beads.

And that's pretty much it!

See you guys next time!

- Jackson

ZooZoo: an Imago production

Hello all who own computers. Jackson here with another youth performance show.
This particular one is.... well, how about I show you:

Imago is a costume theatre, as you might have guessed. Surprisingly, there is only 5 guys in the whole show, only 5. 

ZooZoo, at a glance, is meant for really little ones, but it also does have jokes that even adults would get and enjoy. So they really perform for all ages.

And boy, do they love what they do... it shows in their dancing and movements onstage. You have to love it if you do 3 shows a day for a couple of entire schools. 

It's almost Cirque du Soleil-like, but without the acrobatics. 

The characters pretty much take them over, and it looks like their really table waiting anteaters or musical chair playing penguins onstage. 

I said almost the same thing about a mask-maker in one of my old posts. 

So I recommend it very highly.

Yours truly,

Jackson 

New vlog.

Post coming up later today......................... ZooZoo: an Imago production.

Vlogs, new houses, microscopes, and more!

Hello all who own computers! Jackson here, it's been too long.
So I decided to do pretty much an overall update in our digital journey!
Well, a new year has come and it's name is 2012! Dosen't that sound completely sci-fi? Even to someone like me who was born in the early 21st century.
How are you guys? Had a good Christmas or Hanukkah?
I'm starting a new thing on this blog: a Vlog! It's a video blog that I'll do probably every other time I post.  Here's the first one:

Cool huh?

So we are in the new house, still in Lafayette. 

We pretty much have it all set up as you can see in the vlog. 

See you next time!

-Jackson

Buzz: A sawfish story.

Last week I went with some friends to the Audubon aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans.  It was probably the coolest aquarium I've ever seen! At the end of the aquarium, you got to see in the shark tank, (through glass) there were all kinds of sharks and other big fish, but one stood out, or stood in for me. It was the biggest shark in the tank, you could only see a shadow of it, but it had 3 fins.
I looked to the signage telling us what kinds of fish were in there, and there was a featured sign that had a drawing of the big shark on it.  It pretty much said that the big shark's name was Buzz, and it's a Smalltooth Sawfish. It had been in captivity in the Ripley's aquarium since the 1960s. It is 80 years old, but that is not even elderly by Smalltooth Sawfish standards.

Smalltooth Sawfishes are critically going extinct, and Buzz is one of 10 in captivity, there is not much more in the wild. His story is so fascinating!
To think of the stories that one fish could tell...

One of Buzz's distinct features is his long snout, with pointy "teeth" sticking out the sides.

The "teeth" are not used for eating, if you look closely at the picture above, you can see his mouth. The teeth are simply spikes used for intimidation and fighting.

I googled Buzz for you so you can find out more about him: Buzz Google search.

Here is a video of Buzz:
Buzz the sawfish.

Your friend,
Jackson

The life and times of Georges Méliès

Georges Méliès is a very famous old movie director. He was the first to understand that movies can tell a story, he was born to a family of shoemakers and promptly rejected the family business and bought a theatre to become a magician, then in 1895, he witnessed something more worthwhile to him: Moving pictures. Méliès offered to buy the Lumière brothers camera, when they refused, he made his own using spare gears and springs. 

Many say that Le voyage dans la Lune ( A trip to the moon) was his first masterpiece. (Which you can see here)

He made over 500 movies in his glass studio.

After world war I, peoples tastes changed, his camera was still, and rivals swooped there cameras on tracks for multiple shots, people wanted to see action, not drama. He went bankrupt, and sold his movies to a chemical company that burned them down to make, ironically, shoe heels.  He made a living working in a toy shop in a Paris train station. 

But he made a small comeback, at the time of his death, (1930s) he was at work on a new movie, The ghosts of the metro.  Today is his birthday.

Happy birthday Georges Méliès. 

Your friend,

Jackson

Here are some more of his movies:
The Astronomers Dream,
The vanishing lady,
The Melomaniac,
The haunted castle.

Occupy USA.

Hello again, today we talk about the uprisings that are going on across the nation. Occupy Wall Street is the biggest one next to occupy Oakland. They want equality and change in the nation between the rich and the poor. A person who works minimum wage makes 16,000$ per year.  A CEO of a fancy high end company makes 16,000$ per HOUR!  Some of the protest's aren't peaceful anymore.

A man being arrested during a OWS protest.

                                      Two more men being arrested.
                               

Camping out for two months now.

OWS protest.

Please go to their website and if you can, donate to support their cause here.
We're gonna occupy Lafayette today.   We are the 99%, embrace it.

-Jackson

Ghost Chili: The hottest pepper n the world

Rase your hand if you've ever eaten habanero. Now imagine something 100 times hotter than that. You've got ghost chili. The hottest pepper in the world.
It looks kinda like a jalapeno pepper, except 500 times hotter.
Here is a ghost pepper:

                                                    Looks aren't everything.
Where it grows in India, it's called "Bhut Jolokia" chili.
Here are the statistics of a Bhut Jolokia:

If you like your life. DO NOT EAT THIS!

Seriously, people have had to be taken to the hospital for this.

-Jackson

Veterans Day!

Every day should be veterans day.

It is a day when we appreciate the lives of our soldiers dying to protect our country!  Many of us have lost family members in the wars. And this day is not about our country. It's about the people who died protecting it. The casualties of World War II was 60 million! Yes, six zero million! That's a lot of veterans.

Too many veterans.  Think back if someone you know, or a known ancestor is part of these people who gave their lives to a better future for us. 

And possibly even more important, think of the many, many families who lost their members in the wars, how they must feel.

Just think about it.

Your friend Jackson

Cute/Funny animal pictures.

I don't know what to write. So I'll post a mini-gallery of cute/funny animal photos:

Comprehensive huh? See you soon!

-Jackson

70th post special!

After 2 long years, the 70th post has arrived. So let's have a party!

When I think back to my first post (Which by the way you can see here)

I know that I couldn't have done it without you, my readers! 

You are the biggest moral support I have to keep posting these, otherwise it's like: "Is someone reading this? Hello? Helllooo?" in the empty void of digital space.  So, Yesterday I ordered from amazon: a tripod for my phone (To post my poptropica and pokemon videos which you can see here.) And a go board.

Go is an ancient chinese board game that requires two players, and a set of stones colored black and white. It's a territorial game, where players can "capture" each others stones by surrounding them and gaining points.

Well, Happy 70th!

-Jackson

Stupid diving board!

I was afraid of a 2 foot tall inanimate object the past few months. It was a diving block, 2 feet tall.   It's like the planetarium post I wrote so long ago, see it Here.

But anyway, at my first swimming lesson, I went off that diving board as fast as the next guy. I belly flopped. It hurt. So after that pain, I discovered a fear for that thing. Seriously, I turned this:

into this:

So I went off the side until very recently. 

I was really scared at first. But then I started doing feet jumps, then a couple of dives:  

So that is how I conquered my fears again!

Your fearful friend,

Jackson

What dreams may come. A movie review.

Today I watched a movie called "What dreams may come". It was about a family, A mom, a dad, and two children. A boy and a girl.  The movie is pretty much about death. But the whole movie takes place in heaven. The children die first in a car crash on their way to school, the dad dies 4 years later in pretty much the same way. (Except he wasn't on his way to school) Wich leaves the mother alone. Kinda sad no? Now you could imagine losing your husband and kids in a 4 year time span. You'd kill yourself too, probably. So, the movie is about death, but in a good way, because like I said before, the movie takes place in heaven.

This movie gets an 85% 

Since his wife killed herself, she is in a hell that she created herself. 

She is in a constant state of sorrow. Now, the hell that you create for yourself is not fire and brimstone. The true hell is living your life in sorrow and pain.

So the husband goes on a quest to save his wife from her own hell, when she doesn't even recognize him!  

All in all, a wonderful heartfelt movie! I would recommend it to anyone! 

To find out more about this movie, go to IMDB

Thank you all for reading my blog, I am nearing my 70th post, so that will be a party!

Thank you,

Jackson 

The Masked Messenger: Halloween special!

Hello all lover's of cheese!
Yesterday night we went to a youth show at the ACA called "The masked messenger."  Native New orleaneian Robert Faust, knows how masks work. He is a professional mask maker and acting with the mask.  The show was so amazing and funny at the same time. It was like when he put on each mask, it took him over and he assumed the character perfectly with the right body language.

And he explains that a mask doesn't need to cover your face. 

It could be makeup, or a blank face.

You wouldn't think that it was him behind the mask.

He explained how he traveled all around the world to experience first hand how masks are used in different cultures.

And, he looked like he was having fun playing the characters onstage! 

(That guy above was kinda creepy ...)

It was so amazing!

-Jackson

The house fell through. :(

That's right, you heard the title. We are not getting the event home.
God, Iv'e been writing sad stuff on here lately! Next post will be a little peppier! :D    That's all I really have to say.

Genocide.

Hello, My name is Jackson, I'm a 200 foot tall purple platypus bear.
But that doesn't matter right now. I am also half jewish.  On my dad's side, only 4 of my original family survived. Even their town, Seltz, Poland.  It got wiped off the face of the earth. Boom. That's why we can't do much family tracing. The records burned a long, long time ago.  Only 4 of the original Schneider family survived.  If my Great Great grandma decided to stay in Poland. I would not exist.

Aldof Hitler founded the nazi party, they considered jews a "Racial Inferior" and their racial enemy.  Now, picture this, you are living a nice quiet life, when somebody knocks on your door, drags you away, and puts a gold star on your chest. Then, they send the weak and young, and the elderly to be killed on the spot, imagine you had a kid, or a sick old mother.  Then, they work the stronger till they take their last breath. And they make the rest live in concentration camps (Below)

Kind of alarming no?  After THAT, they take all of you, tell you to get clean in showers, that actually spits out poison gas, and the grand total of jews killed in the holocaust was 6 million.
It was complete genocide.

It's reallly sad how human beings can treat each other this way,
Jackson