Haikus

This world is crazy,

People running all around,

Going nowhere fast.

The sky is bright blue,

Beautiful days are coming,

The sun is shining.

The water is clear,

But the lake is very deep,

What is underneath?

Walking in the woods,

Trees and bushes everywhere

Not an end in sight.

My dogs name is moose,

She is giant for dog,

But small for a moose.

Haikus are stupid

What are the point of haikus

They get nothing done

Walruses are weird

Ugly fat but two large tusks

Kings of the ice sheet

Basketball is fun

Just get the ball in the hoop

Just dribble the ball

Nerds are very smart

Jocks are very athletic

Geeks know computers

Michael Mcnaney

Seamus Patrick Mackinaw

Daniel Frank Kulas

Thank You, Coach Crawford and Coach Gabe

Dear coach Crawford and coach Gabe,
                    Basketball for me has always had some uncertainty, especially at Marshall. In ninth I had coach Brenna with coach Clark as a varsity coach. In tenth grade I could not play basketball because of my back surgery. Then last year both of you came to the coaching staff along with coach Winsett. It was my first year back to basketball, and you guys made me feel as if I never left. You helped with my post game, trying to get me more involved on offense, and helped me with rebounding. By the end of the first year the whole team and coaches went from strangers to family. This year coach Crawford became varsity coach and coach Gabe became the JV coach. When Levi got hurt I found out I was going to get my first varsity start just before warm-ups. At the time I would have liked to know earlier, but telling later allowed my to prepare like I would any other game. In the two years that you were coaches I have had the most fun and learned the most than with any of my other coaches. Coach Crawford: I will never forget your pregame speeches, after them I thought I could take on a whole army, or even slay a dragon. You were always able to get us motivated and ready for anything. Coach Gabe: When I first heard you sing it was so unexpected, and shocking. You have an amazing voice and almost everyday I learned something new and surprising about you. You were always able to lighten up the mood whenever I did something wrong on the court. You would tell me what I did wrong,  and what i should do next time. Then you would go on to make a joke or comment that would crack up the whole bench. I will miss never having either of you as coaches again, and wish the team the best of luck next year. I will carry everything I learned for these past two years and bring them to college next year, and keep them with me for the rest of my life.
                             
                                                                                                               Thank You,
                                                                                                                            Chris N.          

Thank you, Ms. Fishel and Ms. Snyder

                Dear Ms. Fishel and Ms. Snyder
My biggest challenge during my time at Marshall was when I had my back surgery. You two helped me more than anyone else at Marshall during this time. You set a schedule easy enough so my back could handle it, while I still got enough time in classes to slowly start catching up in  my classes. We switched sending me to morning or afternoons, and when I did come back full time my schedule was still flexible so I could go to the nurse or go home if my back started hurting too much. If it were not for you slowly working me back into school I do not know how I could have caught up. Obviously all the teachers were also very understanding and helpful so I would like to thank everyone who helped recover from my surgery. Ms. Fishel, you were also very helpful in making sure I continued to reach my graduation requirements, especially my co-curricular activities. Ms. Snyder, you were also very helpful making me feel comfortable coming back into school. It seems like every time my family or I have had any problems you were there to help us through it.

                                                                                                                 Thank you,
                                                                                                                       Chris N.

Manifesto

Better,

Why does one thing always have to be better than another?

Why can’t they just be different?

Aren't they just preferred?

Why is it, football is better than baseball,

Or summer better than winter?

They're different sports that different people find pleasing,

They're different seasons each with their own role in this world.

To be better is to be of superior quality or excellence,

Is Florida better than California?

No, Florida is not of superior quality,

Nor is it more excellent,

Why is Tom better than John?

Does having more friends make you better?

Does being smarter make you better?

Or is it athleticism that makes him better?

Obviously some things are better,
Peanuts are better for you than cigarettes,

Having 10,000 dollars is better than 1,000 dollars,

Owning a Chevrolet Camaro is better than owning a Dodge Caravan.

But, what if they’re not better,

What if someone has peanuts allergies?

What is someone is an addict and extra money goes straight to drugs?

What if it’s a family with four kids that can barely afford to get groceries?

People need to look at all the facts first,

One sport may be best for one person,

One car may be best for one family,

Nothing is better than everything.  

Thank you, Mr. KJ

Dear Mr. KJ
                You were my first teacher at Marshall. My time at Marshall started slowly, I just sat in the back of the class keeping to myself and not talking to anyone. You encouraged all of us to open up and talk to each other. At the end of sixth grade I was already way more open then the beginning of the year. I felt comfortable talking to all of the my classmates. I have always been a procrastinator but you pressured me to finish what homework I had. You helped me get organized, and no matter how hard it was, stay organized. I could always talk to you whenever I needed to. When our house in West Duluth flooded out you happened to be riding your bike around and talked to us about it. When school started you kept asking for updates about our situation; you said if there was anything we needed you could help. It may not seem like much, but it was nice knowing that you were there if i needed it. We are now settled down in our new house and my first blog post, snapshots of my summer, talks more about moving in. I will never forget walking in your classroom and being able to six on a yoga ball. I always felt more calm and relaxed when I sat down, it was also so much more fun than regular chairs. Thank you for all of your help with my time at Marshall.
                                                                                                     Thank you so much,
                                                                                                                            Chris. N

Fishing with Nate

             Last Saturday, Nate and I went fishing; originally we were going to fish from shore but at the last minute my dad got the boat and trailer fixed. I picked Nate up at his house, we stopped for bait and something to drink, and we left for Grand Lake. The Harsh winter and large amount of snow on Grand Lake caused a massive fish kill, 35,000 fish died. Grand Lake is in Twig, and for the most part a shallow medium sized lake. My dad did not tighten the lug-nuts on one of the wheels completely so when he got to the landing there was only one bolt on one of the wheels. While me and Nate were fishing he went to Menards and bought a couple bolts for me to tighten after we were done fishing. Nate and I both caught a fish before we left, but they were the only two fish we caught. Plenty of fish followed

Nate and me with Nate's fish

the lures right up the the boat but never bit. When we finished I tightened the bolts on the wheels and dropped the boat off at my house before heading to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch. At Buffalo Wild Wings Nate completed the Blazen Wings Challenge, eating twelve of the hottest wings in less than six minutes. After congratulating Nate I dropped him off at his house and went back home.

Spring Cleaning

            Not that spring has finally come, the only bad part of spring has come quick. Spring cleaning, all the things that were left out all winter under a couple of feet of snow are spread out everywhere, things you don't even recognize are found once the snow melts. The thing in the worse shape was our boat. The boat never made it to barn last fall and we didn't put a boat cover on. All of the snow from the winter and rain from the spring has been collecting in the boat and even though the plug was out, the boat was leaning forward away from drainage hole. Normally, I can lift the front of the boat up myself

Some of the ice collecting in the boat. 

to put a object under it , but it took my dad, uncle, cousin, and me to lift up the boat so it could drain. The boat took over a day until all the water was drained. We also left the two batteries in the boat all winter so we took them out of the boat and started charging them. Luckily the batteries are both still good and are now fully charged. The next step was to open all the drawers to let them dry, so we can remove all the leaves and other garbage. There are still two things left to do with the boat. The first thing we have to do is fix a wheel. One of the wheels on the trailer has a whole in it and we will have to either buy another wheel or find the hole and fix the wheel. The second thing we have to do is find another screw for the motor. There are two screws for the lower unit to put in lower unit lube. We only found one of the screws and will probably have but another screw of the same size. We are trying to get these things done as soon as possible because almost all the ice if of lakes in the area and fishing opener has already passed.

Signing up for college classes

                     Bemidji State University hosted an event for all incoming freshman to register for classes and housing and to learn more about our next four years of schooling. The event started at 8:30am on a friday. My parents were not able to go because my mom was taking care of my older sister's baby and my dad was at work. My cousin, who got out of college two years ago, decided he wanted to come with me to Bemidji. I had to get up at four in the morning and me and my cousin left at five. Bemidji is over 150 miles from my house in Cloquet, but it is easy driving. My house is two miles off of highway 2 and we took highway 2 all the way to Bemidji. It took much less time then we were expecting and we got to Bemidji at 7 a hour earlier than we were expecting and an hour and a half until the event started. We drove through Bemidji and stopped in a Gander Mountain parking lot to get out and stretch. Bemidji State university is located on lake Bemidji with the Mississippi river running through it. The campus is on the shore of lake Bemidji and the are hundreds of other lakes in the area. The actual registration went great and I already have my schedule for the fall semester.

Random Acts of Shakespeare.

In English class, we have to act out a part of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night for random acts of Shakespeare. I was in a group with Dan K, David G and Luke P. Dave played Maria's helper, Dan played Maria, and I was Toby. It was act one scene three, and we filmed it at Kenwood gas station. In this scene Maria yells at Toby because he keeps staying out all night drinking. they fight and Toby says that all he needs to do is drink and Maria tells him that drinking might be his downfall.

Spring

                 This is my family's first spring at our new house since we moved in. The last couple of weeks were  spent by pickaxing our driveway to remove the foot or so of packed snow and ice that have built up. This past weekend was no different. The weather was beautiful in the 50's and the snow was definitely melting. My sister and I were throwing snowball at different targets when my parents got home and we started pickaxing the driveway again. Everything was moving slow but perfectly fine, when my dad opened our garage door to find four inches of water on the floor. There is a drain in our garage but we never used it, we didn't even know if the drain worked. The first thing we did was try and take the cover off the drain. I tried with a round file and a screwdriver, but the file broke. I then found the two thickest screwdriver I could and was able to take the drain off. We got the shop-vac out and tried to clear the drain out. It took emptying over ten full buckets of water, rust, and whatever else was stuck in the drain before we bought the house before we could even the pipe. We would suck a whole bucket of water and then change the hose around and try and blow the dirt around to break it up. Every time my hand hit the top of the shop vac to turn it off I would feel a shock. That doesn't seem too safe considering i was standing in a pool of water, but it didn't hurt so we kept going. We ended up getting rid of all of the water and we cleared to drain so it is working properly now.

Conversation with Molly

             Recently all of the English 12 classes had a Skype discussion with Molly, a Marshall alum, about her blog Confessions of a First-Time Mom, college, The Lovely Bones, and everyday life. Molly's blog is about her raising her son Liam, and balancing being Liam's mom and being her own person. One of Molly's recent posts was published on CNN and we got a chance to ask her about that.

Picture Thanks to Ms. Kosmatka 

           Before we started talking to Molly some people in the class were nervous. Nervous to talk to her, nervous that there might be technical difficulties, and nervous about possibly getting a bad grade. I thought of it as just talking to another person, and the worst thing that could happen is I get a bad grade (compared with some of our fishbowl discussions it couldn't be much worse).
           Once we actually started talking to Molly things got much better. The first group went a little slow and looked a little nervous, but Molly was such an easy person to talk to that after that it seamed like the question and answer turned into a genuine conversation. She told us her thoughts about the book, her experiences at Marshall, and her fight to be her own individual instead of just Liam's mom. Molly told us how she doesn't want to be the mom that cleans up all of Liam's messes, she said that he will need to learn to pick them up himself.  "People grow up by living" and that is just what Molly is going to let Liam do (19).   Her stories about Liam and her time with Dr. Nygaard were very amusing and made the class period fly by. Before the class we were fighting to come up with questions to ask her, but as the conversation her her flew by you were fighting to ask your best questions in the 10-15 minutes you had.

Ping Pong

Later in the day after our "Failed Trip", we had a ping pong tournament. My dad started the fire in our garage as soon as we got back from ice fishing. My dad and i spent almost the rest of the day and night in the garage; we finished cleaning the garage and kept the fire going. While my dad and i were in the garage my mom and sister were in the house making supper. They made taco meat with chicken and re-fried beans for tacos and made Swedish meatballs and cheesy chicken wings. Many people came, including Pierce and his parents, and the whole day and night was spent talking and playing ping pong until one in the morning.

Basketball

           Now that basketball is over I had a free weekend for the first time since early November. Slowly i have been getting more and more tired and sore. Going into the weekend I told myself I was going to do something productive and fun that i wasn't able to do during basketball, something like ice fishing or walking around our property in waist high snow with my dog. What actually happened was much different I woke up at 11 am when the night before I fell asleep at 10 pm. That set the tone for the weekend because that night the same thing happened, I fell asleep at 10 pm and woke up around 11:30 the next morning. That is 26 hours of sleep in two nights. It turned out all I did over the weekend was sleep, eat, and watch television. Even tough I didn't actually accomplish anything it felt good. I had no commitments, and could do whatever i wanted. Yes, I miss basketball the after school practices and of course the games, but one thing I will never miss are those Saturday morning practices that make you wake up early and put a kink in your whole day. The sleep and rest felt really good, my body and mind needed it. Now on Monday i am not groggy and sleepy like most Monday mornings during basketball season, but instead i'm awake and attentive.

Failed Trip

            My mom wanted everyone out of the house so that she could cook for the party we were having later that day. My dad, sister and I decided we would go fishing to get out of the house. When we woke up everyone got dressed to go fishing in the cold weather. What my dad and I didn't know was that my sister only wore crocks and two pairs socks under my dads slip on boots. Then me and my dad loaded the ice house in our truck and we went to the bait shop.
        At the bait shop we got two dozen minnows and wax worms, some of the cheapest minnows we bought from anywhere. Grand Lake is only eight minutes from our house and we got there in no time. We were planning on walking 300 yards to get to where we wanted to fish. The second we got on the lake we knew it would be a challenge. The snow was up to my knees and for my sister and dad it was almost impossible to walk through.
         Half way to our spot we finally noticed my sisters boots; there was snow in them and her feet were frozen. My dad told her to walk back to the truck and warm up while me and him drag the sled back. It ended up just being me dragging the sled back as he was having trouble just walking in the snow. When i got back to the truck i was exhausted, it was probably the biggest workout i had all year so far. Things didn't happen as we planned but my sister was fine this wasn't our first failed fishing trip and unfortunately wont be our last.

Pokegama

           My mom said that this year she wants to enjoy winter instead of waiting for it to pass. She said she wanted to go snowshoeing and skiing. Another thing she wants to do is go ice fishing. My mom loves to fish during the summer but she has not gone ice fishing since she was a kid. She is never on the ice for very long; once she hears the ice crack she usually gets off quickly. On the warmest weekend of the winter so far, my mom decided she wanted to try ice fishing. My dad and I loaded a sled filled with ice fishing gear in our truck and my mom and dad left to go fishing. My sister her friend and her friends dad met them on the ice. I left later in my own vehicle because I had basketball game that day and would have to leave early. When I got out there all of the holes were drilled through the ice and my dad was working on setting up the ice house. I got rods ready for my mom, sister, and her friend and they got to fishing right away. Very few fish were caught but everyone had fun throwing a football and enjoying a unusually warm winter day.

Lake of the Woods

My dad, uncle, grandfather, a family friend and me recently spent three days near Baudette Minnesota at Lake of the Woods. The first day we took two vehicles up to our cabin we were staying at. We left at four and finally found the cabin at nine. When we got there it was much more than we expected. When we walked in it felt like it was someone's house, a full kitchen, living room, bathroom and five beds. When we got up the next day we got to our ice house at about eight. The first fish of the trip was a Tullibee. On the first day we caught around 100 fish between the five of us, most were Walleyes or Saugers. My uncle and I caught 5 Tullibee and I caught a 12 inch perch. The first day we caught six fish over 23 inches my dad caught the biggest walleye of the trip at 29 inches. The last fish of the day I caught on a bobber I left in the whole as we were picking up all our stuff getting ready to leave for the day. It was a 25 inch walleye my biggest walleye of the trip.


My dad's 29 inch walleye

My 25 inch walleye



 We got off the ice an hour after sunset and drove back to the cabin. We kept 20 fish the first day and once we got back to the cabin we cleaned and cooked the fish, after we were finished eating we still had extra fish we ate the next day. In the morning of our last day we got to our ice house 30 minutes before sunrise. The first fish of that day was an Eel pout the only one we caught all trip. The last day of fishing was slower than the first but we caught 10 fish over 20 inches, including a 33 inch northern that tangled up every line in the ice house. We had to cut all of our lines to untangle them and after all that we had to release it because it was in a protected slot. It took us about ten minutes to get all the rods how they were before the northern. We left the ice house at four and came back to our cabin to grab our gear; we left our cabin at five and got back to Duluth at 11:30. 

What I learned from the Sherman Alexia project

             Sherman Alexei is a poet, writer and performer. He is the author of the book we are reading in class, Flight. I was in a group with Jack Baker, Jake Serrie, Dan Kulas, Stefan Granados, and Hanvit. Sherman was born 1966 on the Spokane Indian reservation. He attended school outside the reservation where he was the only Indian. He currently live in Seattle with his wife and two sons. Our group also learned about the Ghost Dance and the Sand Creek Massacre.
              A Ghost Dance is an important ritual in the messianic religion that many native American groups used to summon spirits to help them with cultural revival. Two other ways to describe it is , as a plea for supernatural intervention in their lives by people whose culture has been destroyed, or as an effort by a minority to regain power and dignity that will give them a sense of meaning and stability to their lives. Jack Wilson or Wovoka was the prophet that had a vision from god. In That vision god told him the earth would die and come back alive; all the white people would die; and all Native Americans dead or alive would be reunited free of death, diseases, and suffering. For the prophecy to come true Native Americans would have to follow Wovoka's Doctrine of pacifism and take part in the sacred dance Wovoka taught them. Wovoka went from a prophet to the messiah and the religion he created spread to multiple other tribes. Wovoka's prophecy never happened and tribes that followed his religion were forced onto reservations.


Sources
Alexie, Sherman. "Fiction and Poetry Award Winner: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian." Horn Book   Magazine [Plain City] Jan. 2009:      25-28.
Print.
McLoughlin, William G. "Ghost Dance Movements: Some Thoughts on Definition Based on Cherokee History."   Ethnohistory 37.1: 25. Print.