luckyduckysyd

Sangria Reflecion

En la classe de espanol nosotros hecho sangria sin alcohol. Sangria es una refresca de mucha fruta. los ingrediones era: 3 tazas de jugo de uvas, ¾ taza de jugo de manzanas, ½ taza de jugo de naranja, 1 cuchara de jugo de limón, 1 limón, cortada en rodajas con la piel, ½ lima, cortada en rodajas con la piel, 1 naranja mediana, cortada en rodajas con la piel, 1 manzana pequeña, sin el centro, cortada en octavos, con la piel, 1 ciruela pequeña, fileteada, con la piel, 2-3 tazas de agua mineral con gas o soda, a gusto. Proximo, nosotros mescla todas y nosotros bebimos. La sangria era muy, muy delisioso!

Espanol Salsa Roja Reflecion

En la classe de espanol, nosotros hecho salsa. En dos groupo, un groupo hecho salsa roja y un groupo hecho salsa verdre. Mi groupo hecho salsa roja. Los ingredientes era: Roma tamatos, ajo, un jalapeno, cilantro, y sal. Nosotors corte todos la comida y poner el en el liquidora. El dia nosotros hechemos La salsa, la salsa era caliente, pero el primero dia, la salsa era frio y muy deisioso! Mi mucho gusta haciendo salsa roja!

Sugar Domination

As our final science project this year, we decided to add on to our food science unit, making candy. We first researched about the different forms of sugar and sugar in the different stages. Then, we split up into groups and decided on what type of candy to make. I was in a group with Tobin and Tati and we decided to make taffy. After spending a fair amount of time figuring out which recipe to use, we chose one off of ABC news. Since we were the last group to actually make our candy, we had watched almost all of the groups struggle, burning most of the sugar. On tuesday, we started our cooking. We started out pour our four ingredients into a pan with low heat. Then on a higher heat we stirred the mixture until the sugar dissolved. Then we spent a painful amount of time watching the candy thermometer until the mixture reached 275 degrees. We then poured it into a glass bowl and waited until it was cool enough to stretch. We all took a piece of the taffy and slowly stretched it. Only a few pieces worked out the way we wanted to. After we cut it and let it cool, it tured into more of a hard candy rather than a taffy. 

Overall, our candy was a success. Yes, it could have been better. I think it would be really interesting to try it again and try to fix the things that didn’t work. 

Here is the link to the recipe we used. 

Mock Trial 2011

Last week, to get a better understanding of the justice system, the seventh and eighth grade held a mock trial. We were divided up into two teams, prosecution and defense. We were also split up into teams of two, Sofia was my partner. It was a three day project, (it actually ending up being four days), three of which were “learning/practice/training days. On those those days we worked with real attorneys, Kasra Sadr and John Fraher. The defense team went with Kasra and prosecution went with John. This year I was defense. Like last year, we were given a packet about the case and went from there, but this year’s trial was very different from last year’s. Last year’s packet was basically a script, where we just read off of, this year’s packet, was a guideline, the trial was up to you. This put us in a position where the amount of effort you put into the project really showed in the end.

The case that we used was a first degree murder crime. Monica Hewitt, a member of a skydiving club,  was held accountable for cutting the strings of another skydiver, Jennifer White’s parachute. Jennifer White and Monica Hewitt and Jennifer White both dated the same man at different times. For this trial, it was the prosecution’s job to point out all of the facts that show that Monica white i guilt and it was our job, as the defense to find all of the “reasonable doubt” from the evidence, proof and witness testimonies.

Last year, because the trial was very scripted all that we had to do was read off of the packet and write an opening statement. This year the whole trial was basically up to us. We asked for more involvement this year and we definitively got it. It was a very stressful week, only having three days of preparation with Kasra and John and having to create a whole trial in the time period. With help from Kasra, as the defense, we had to decide what key points in the case we were going to use to defend our client, what the difference between a cross examination and direct cross examination is, and how to exicute them properly, and how to put all of the information that supports your side into an opening or closing statement.

Just this past week I learned more than I ever thought I would learn about the justice system. Last year, I feel like I didn’t learned much, I was just tol to read what was infront of me and make it sound good. This year, I was taught what everything actually means, why and how to work off of the information. I loved having Kasra as our teacher, because instead of just saying what we needed to do, he took time to explain it, and gave us more ideas. The first day, we went through the packet, and discussed what we needed to get done that week. After that first day, I felt like I had all of the information I needed, but each day I learned more and more. The second day we wrote our opening or closing statements and had our at least 25 questions for our direct or cross examinations. The third day was going to be a “dress rehearsal” but ended up just being a day for answering questions and going over some points that we didn’t get to days before. So, because we didn’t get to show Kasra our opening and closing statements on Wednesday, we decided that we needed some time on Thursday. Now thinking about it, I think that the learning/practice/training days were more valuable to me than the actual trial.

The day of the trial I was very nervous but also very excited. I was in trial number three so, for my trial the jurry had already had an opinion in their mind about the case, I think that was a big set back for us. During my trial it almost looked like they were bored and it was as if they were hearing the same trial over again. For my trial, It was me and Sofia on defense and Max and Sherif representing prosecution. It was a very close trial but the jerry voted that Monica Hewitt was Guilty. I was dissipated that we lost our case but I knew I tried my best and learned so much throughout the process.

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Here is my opening statement and cross examinations that I used in my trial.

Opening Statement

Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Sydney Arthur Ridgeway and I am representing Ms. Monica Hewiit. Monica Hewitt gradua†ed college at UCSD with a degree in nursing and has been working at The San Diego General Hospital in the pediatric cancer unit for five years. The evidence will prove to you the Monica should be acquitted of these charges. As you will see, from witness testimonies and the evidence presented, there is no reasonable proof that Monica Hewitt is guilty of this crime.

The facts show that the only physical evidence from this case was not authenticated. Dr. Sandra Rothstein, crime scene investigator from the San Diego Police Department, found only one fingerprint on Jennifer White’s chute other than her own. She will explain that there is reasonable doubt that the finger print that was found on Jennifer White’s parachute does not belong to Monica Hewitt. The print was smudged and they were unable to tell who it belongs to. Rothsein said that it was more than likely that the print belonged to Monica. The prosecution will tell you that Monica’s finger print was the one that was on the chute, but there are so many other possibilities why or how that fingerprint could have gotten there.

Before Jennifer jumped, Martin Ibramivich, manager of Blue Skies, said that he saw Monica in a white Honda, parked next to Airport way, looking towards Jennifer and Robert kissing in front of flyboy around 7:00 in the morning. The evidence shows that he has trouble see long distances, he wasn’t sure if he was wearing his glasses and was looking from over 200 feet away. Monica owns a white Toyota Camery, wasn’t even parked in that spot and never saw Jennifer White and Robert Diamond hugging and kissing. She said that she was parked near Blue Skies. With that said there is no proof that she was parked there or that he saw her looking at the couple.

Robert Diamond and Monica Hewitt dated for about a year. After her and Robert broke up, Diamond started dating Veronica Serry. Monica admitted in her testimony that she still wanted to date Robert Diamond while he was dating Veronica Serry. The prosecution will tell you that Monica is Jealous of Jennifer and Robert’s Relationship. Monica said in her testimony that she was over Jennifer and Diamond’s relationship and that they were just friends. Robert Diamond said in his testimony that Monica didn’t like Jennifer because she was his girl friend but they never had any issues. He also said that Monica and Veronica were not really jealous, they just didn’t get along. Monica and Jennifer didn’t have issues, her and Veronica did.

Robert Diamond said in his testimony that he still talks to Veronica Serry. The day after the day of Jennifer White’s death, Ms. Serry fled the country. She was unable to be here today. Diamond testified that he talks to her very often by phone and neither one of them brought up Jennifer White’s death.

When diamond arrived at blue skies with Jennifer White the day of her own death, while Jennifer was in the ladies room he said that he was alone with the chutes for about three minutes. He took Jennifer’s pack out of her cubby, and set it on the table. Diamond touched Jennifer’s pack. Sandra Rothstein is going to say that she only found two fingerprints on Jennifer white’s chute and none of which were Robert Diamond’s. Robert will testify that he touched the chute so either the evidence has been tampered with or the crime scene investigators didn’t find the print.

The testimony shows that there were six people jumping on the same plane that Jennifer White was in. Robert Diamond, Jennifer White, Monica Hewitt, Veronica Serry, Juan Sanchez and Scott Morningside were all on the plane. It is very possible that Monica or anyone else on the plane could have had access to the chute. In a very confined space and with turbulence, Monica could have easily left her finger print on the chute.

There is no reasonable evidence that the cords on Jennifer’s chute were cut before she jumped. It is possible that Jennifer’s chute could have just failed to open and someone else shifted the evidence to frame Monica, or someone could have even cut them days before. We clearly do not have the proof.  After Jennifer White jumped, her parachute was left unattended for one whole hour. That time frame is twice as long as the time the chute was left unattended before Jennifer jumped. Sandra Rothstein and her partner, Lenny Wilson brought the chute to the San Diego Police Department. They picked it up at the Blue Skies office. That means that someone, in that period of time, touched the chute and brought it to the blue skies office.

Ladies and Gentleman, this crime consists of too many unanswered questions and the only physical evidence is not confirmed. The prosecution cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Monica Hewitt is guilty of the murder of Monica White.

Cross Examination of Robert Diamond

1) What is your name?
2) Do you work?
3) Where do you work?
4) What do you do there?
5) Do you know Monica Hewitt?
6) Did you date her?
7) How long did you date her?
8) Did you break up with her or did she break up with you?
9) Are you still friends?
10) Did you know Jennifer White?
11) Were you dating correct?
12) For how long?
13) Have you dated any other girls as Blue Skies?
14) Does Monica know that?
15) Have you had problems with other ex girlfriends being jealous of you and your current girlfriend?
16) Was Monica the only one that was Jealous?
17) When was the last time you saw Monica before Jennifer’s death?
18) You hung out just as friends correct?
19) Did Jennifer know that you were still friends?
20) Was Jennifer with you the day of her death?
21) Is it true that you arrived at Blue skies at 7:00 and right away walked to Flyboy?
22) You did not see Monica Hewitt while walking over to Flyboy correct?
23) Did you see Martin Ibramivich?
24) When you arrived at Blue skies around 7:15 no one was there correct?
25) There was a time when you were alone with the chutes correct?
26) Did you touch her chute?
27) Did you only set her chute on the table, or both of yours?
28) Did you jump the day of her death?
29) Did you jump before her?
30) Did you see Monica at all that day?
31) Do you think it is possible that Monica Hewitt’s death was framed?
32) Do you have a girlfriend at this time?

Cross Examination of Martin Ibramivich

1) What is your name?
2) Where do you work?
3) You were working at blue skies the day of Jennifer White’s death correct?
4) You arrived there at about 6:45 correct?
5) And a little after 7:00 you went over to fly boy?
6) Is it possible that when you say a little after 7:00 you could have left Blue Skies closer to 7:15?
7) Is it true that you saw Jennifer White and Robert Diamond walking over to flyboy hugging and kissing?
8) Is it true that you thought that you saw Monica Hewitt parked in a white Honda on the side of Airport way?
9) Is it possible that someone else was parked in a white Honda on the side of airport way?
10) Did you see a face?
11) And you thought that you saw Monica looking in the direction of Flyboy where you saw Ms. White and Mr. Diamond together?
12) Is it possible that Monica was not looking at White and Diamond and was looking at something else in that direction?
13) Is it true that the car was parked over 200 feet away from were you were standing?
14) That is a very far distance away to see someone’s face, do you agree?
15) You wear glasses is that correct?
16) Why do you wear them exactly?
17) You said that you were not sure if you were wearing them that day correct?
18) So, you do not have the best eye sight, you don’t even know if you were wearing your glasses the day of Jennifer White’s death, and you were over 200 feet away from her car, yet, you could still see that Monica Hewitt was in her car?
19) Do you know which way the white Honda was parked?
(show map in some way)
20) If the car was parked facing flight street, you would have only been able to see the back of the car, which means you would have not been able to see Monica’s face, what she was doing, or if she was even looking at Diamond and Jennifer, is that correct?
21) The facts will show that if the car was parked towards Airport Way, is it possible that the Hanger could have been blocking Monica’s view of White and Diamond, is that correct?
22) Isn’t it true that at 7:30, when you walked back to Blue Skies?
23) You did see Monica but you did not see her touch Ms. White’s chute, correct?
24) You were in the parachute room correct?
25) Do you think that anyone would cut Jennifer’s chute while you could easily see them?
26) Around how long do you think you were at Flyboy?
27) Is it possible while you were gone, other club members could have touched Jennifer’s chute?
28) Did you or did you not see Jennifer White get her chute?
29) Is it possible that she could have cut her own strings?
30) There are no facts that show that the cords were cut before Jennifer white jumped is that correct?
31) Is it possible that Jennifer’s chute just didn’t open and someone could have cut the strings of the parachute after Jennifer died?
32: Is it possible that someone could have made it look like Monia cut the strings of Jennifer White’s chute?
33) Who else had access to the parachute room?

Great Artists 2011

Joyce Watkins decribes herself as an “Ocean Beach Dreamer”. Throughout her adulyhood, she has been traveling to many different places around the world, painting, writing, and photographing the scenery. Some of the places she has traveled to recently include: the Caribbean, Barbados, St. Lucia, Costa Rica, San Blas, Melaque, New Delhi, India and Maui. Although she ddoes spend much of her time traveling, her home is in Ocean Beach, San Diego.

Joyce’s paintings are watercolors and the majority of them are pictures of beach scenery. In fact, her painting that is the most well known and my personal favorite, is her watercolor of a wave called “Pipeline”. Joyce has always been interesting in watercolor and started really focusing on her art, writing and traveling in her late 20’s. Although she is known for her watercolors, she also writes a lot of poetry. Much of her poetry is about the season, weather, the scenery around her, love, and her opinions on life.

Throughout this process, I tried to incorporate Joyce’s style of art into my watercolor paintings. At first, I had difficulty getting used to working with watercolor and how to emulate her style of art. I started off working with small squares of watercolor paper and experimenting, seeing how much water to add and how to blend the colors. After getting used to the medium, I started making more and more paintings, learning what worked and what didn’t work. I found that once you practice a technique, the more you use it, the better you get at it, and the more paintings I made, the more I liked them. Watercolor takes practice, and so does Joyce Watkins’s style of art.

Debate Reflection

In humanities, to take a break from our normal six week long projects, we decided to have weekly discussions, conversations and debates. We wrote a list on the board, mostly current events that we were interested in, and picked from the list what we wanted to debate about. Our first topic was about intervention in Libia. We took a vote about what our current opinion on the topic was and from there put ourselves in the appropriate side. Some of us took the side of our opposite opinion, just for a challenge. I didn’t know enough about the topic to determine what side I was on so, I just chose to be agenst capital punishment.  We had about two or three days to research the topic and came back the day of the debate with all of the information you need to support your opinion. We started off my debated one on one and then later emerged into one big group. Debating in a full group was a lot louder and there it was definitely a stronger debate between the two sides. The Intervention in Libia debate was very interesting, I learned a lot about the topic. The next debate we had was about capital punishment. I personally was for capital punishment. I liked this debate better just because I had a stronger opinion on it and knew more about the topic. Over all I like these debates/conversations, they are a good change.

Las Vacaciones de la Primavera

En las vacaciones de la primavera, me gustaría que ir a nadar en la playa o en la picina.

Tengo que ir a mi gymnasia a practicar.

Queria que dormir mucho y relajarse.

Qué animal serías?

Si yo fuerra un animal, sería un hipopótamo, por que me gusta a nadar y me gusta hipopotamos. También, sería un perro, porque me gusta mi familia y me gustaría a vivir en un casa, no en la fuera. También, sería un ratón por que muchas personas dice que me miro como a un ratón. No me gustaría ser un ratón, ya que son muy pequeñas y gruesas. No me gustaría ser un animal. Me gusta ser un chica!

Timeline Project Reflection

In humanities we just finished another round of projects, only this time we formated them a little differently. This time around, we wanted do in projects in only two weeks, which of course, had it’s disadvantages and advantages. Also, everyone chose to do the projects individually. These projects were definitely a big change and in my opinion, I think we still have to get used to this short of a deadline.

For my project, I decided to make a timeline of all of the major technology that has been invented that changed the way we live. After researching my topic for a couple days, I realized that I had chosen a very broad topic, which I think was the mistake that a lot of my classmates made as well. I decided to shorten my topic and question to What were some of the major technologies invented that changed the way we live? So, I changed the “all” to “some” and only revolved my project around 9 major technology. I am glad that I changed my project because of that. I think that it is almost impossible to learn about all of the technologies that were invented and let alone put them all on a timeline.

I really liked not having to rely on someone else for a project. I think it made complete sense to work individually on this project especially because it was only a two week project. I think that is the reason why I like doing individual projects. Also, working in a group, allows for lagging and as we say, “piggybacking”. Working alone, you know for sure, that you are the only one that could let you down and I think that is what motivates me to stay on track and get my work done. I am not saying that I would want to do every project individually, I do enjoy working with other people. I just think that we shouldn’t only do  6 week projects with three or people in each group.

I think that we definitely did have some problems with the whole two week project thing. Usually, we have six weeks to complete a project and use two to three weeks of them researching. This time, we only had about a week or so to do our research. I think that when we were planning the format of this project, we didn’t realize how much time two weeks actually is. We first set our deadline to be on a tuesday, two weeks from the starting point. Unfortunately, A few days before Tuesday most of us were not ready to present and ended up setting the deadline back to the Monday, the next week. I think that if we did present our projects on that tuesday, the outcome would not have been as good. Part of me says that setting it back was cheating, we said I was going to be a two week project and it turned into a three.

I chose an interesting topic and learned a lot about it. I learned a lot of facts about the time periods and inventions. Not only did my project teach me dates and just strait facts but I also learned a lot about patenting and what it takes to invent something. I also learned about the different sides and opinions people have about the laws of patenting.

I admit that my timeline could have been more appealing and could have shown more of what I learned. Making the timeline took a lot of work but in the end it looked like I just glued on some words.  I don’t think I stressed the fact enough that that timeline was just the plain facts and that I didn’t learn about only nine inventions. During my presentation I didn’t talk much about patenting or the process of inventing a product. I think that what I presented didn’t represent the full aspect of my project.