Mentor Log

April 20, 2007
12:00 P.M. -- 4:00 P.M.

Today I arrived at my grandmother's house earlier than twelve o'clock but our mentor session didn't start until twelve. At twelve we started to talk about what my main priorities where. I decided that I was at least a couple of weeks behind with my product. Because of my days spent in the hospital so I said that I needed to do something big to make my project a success.

At that very moment I decided to only make my quilt and the pillows to go along with it. To start me off my grandmother went to get the patterns for the quilt, the first thing we had to work on was figuring out what pattern we wanted to use. Soon I came up with a triangle-square like pattern, with the colors we chose, which was red and green. My grandmother convinced me that those were the perfect colors since the only time I would be using the quilt was during the winter and Christmas time of the year.

After choosing the pattern and color we got to work. My grandmother decided that I should hand sew the quilt that way I would have a more hands on experience with sewing. First she showed me how to thread the needle then she showed me how to tie the thread at the end so that the thread would stay in place and not go straight through the fabric. Next she told me how to place the fabric on the opposite side and how to sew to triangles together.

So for the rest of our time I sat there sewing as many triangles together as I could until it became time for me to go home.

Mentor Log

Natasha Mentor Log
April 13, 2007
12:00 P.M. – 4:00 P.M.

Today at twelve I went to Rocksprings Homes to visit my mentor. When I got there I walked up to the door and knocked. Soon as I was inside I went straight to the kitchen because she’s my grandmother and because it was lunchtime. After I finished lunch she asked me if I knew or had any ideas of what my product was going to be I replied no.

After a couple of minutes we finally got an idea to make a quilt with a couple of pillows to go along with it and maybe a pair or two children's clothes. Next we went down the hall to her sewing room and started to go through loads and loads of patterns. She told me that she used to use these patterns when she was younger to make clothing to sell for money. I asked her if people really bought these clothes and she was like yeah when she was younger these clothes were in style and also that many people didn’t have much to wear.

First we went through little boys clothing then we moved on to the patterns for little girls. After going through most of her patterns for about an hour we had chosen at least two patterns for each that we thought we might like to use for my product. After choosing those patterns we had to put away all of the other patterns. After minutes of doing that we moved on to finding some patterns for my quilt and after searching for a long while we found about ten quilt patterns that looked good.

Finally we were done with putting all of the other patterns we hadn’t chosen away and decided to take a break. We got together our patterns and went into the living room to find her zip lock bags so we could put the patterns away until our next visit. We found them in the pantry and placed the patterns inside the bags and in her room so that we wouldn’t have to go through all the trouble of searching for them again. You know how grandmothers are they love to collect stuff and soon there’s stuff every where.

My mother called and told me that she was on the way to come and get me so I told my grandmother that I would see her the next visit. On the next visit we plan to choose the fabric and to begin sewing the outfits for my product. So after that I finished cleaning up and went home and thats how that visit ended.

The Restoration

The Glorious Revolution

The Glorious Revolution was the overthrow of James II of England. He was overthrown by a union of Parliamentarians and by a man named William the III of Orange-Nassau. The deposition of the Roman Catholic James II ended any chance of Catholicism becoming re-established in England, which also lead to toleration for nonconformist Protestants.

The Glorious Revolution was important because it was known as the last successful invasion of England. This event began the Modern English Parliamentary Democracy. This event also made the Bill of Rights one of the most important documents in the political history of Britain.

"What is Satire?" Satire is the use of irony, sarcasm and ridicule against a person. It’s when you use words to tell a meaning that is opposite of what you really meant. Ex: "I got fired today" "Well isn’t that nice" that’s satire. Examples of satire today include; the television show the Simpson’s, the Jay Leno show, Saturday Night Live, and David Letterman are all examples to me of satire today on television.

At the beginning of the Modest Proposal Jonathan Swift was telling about how he felt sorry for all the beggars. Then he went on to talk about how every time you saw a woman beggar she always had at least six children trailing behind her. Jonathan goes on to say that people could sell their children but that would not work because the children aren’t old enough (until they are 13) and that by the time they are old enough their to small to work because they have not been feed enough. The last message is saying that the women should become breeders and they should have lots and lots of children so that they can sell them to hungry people so they can eat them. He also said that there should be 1 man to every 4 females. This is an example of satire because he really didn’t mean he was going to sell the children for food for real, he was being sarcastic I hope.

"A Journal of the Plague Year" The plague cam as a surprise to every body some people had the disease but didn’t know so while they were living their regular life they were really passing the plague along to other people. The plague was supposed to have come from rats. They believe that the plague was passed to humans from fleas. Because the fleas used to bite the rats which were infected and the flea would after go bite a human. "For example, many persons in the time of this visitation never perceived that they were infected till they found, to their unspeakable surprise, the tokens come out apon them;

I also read that after the tokens showed up the person infected rarely lived six hours. The disease spread fast mainly because no body knew they had it until at least two days after they had caught it. So by then you know that they probably had already spread it to thousands of people in their village. Soon people started to kill themselves because they caught the plague. Some hung themselves others shot themselves, although some of them did not have the plague but they were probably scared of catching it or maybe they had lost everything because of it. People started to become very delusional they would strip naked and run out of their houses and down the street. Others would throw themselves into the burial pits with all of the people who had been plagued and did not make it. The plague had gotten so bad that there was a law against leaving your quarantine if your house was infected with the disease. "Inside London, if any member of a family came down with the plague, the whole family was confined by law to its dwelling."

I think that staying alive was the most important aspect to people in these times of plague. People who weren’t infected stayed away from people who were unless they were family members and they needed their help. Some still abandoned their family after they found out the plague had hit their own home. I also feel that not spreading the plague was very important to the people of this time too because 1: the plague was very contagious and 2: because they made a law for you not to leave your house if someone inside it was infected. "The alarm was great in the house, as anyone may suppose, they having been free from the distemper till that disaster, which, bringing the infection to the house, spread it immediately to other houses round about it." So as you can see not getting infected was very important to people of this time.