Amber: A Girl Living in the Time of Slavery

#throwbacktime !!!!!

So here is a story I wrote when I was in second grade about slavery. At the time, everybody (meaning, teachers, parents...) really liked the slaves' working song I composed within it (only lyrics, duh, not including the actual melody, which it has none.) Now, I still can't understand what is so special about it........?

Here it is!

Note: I'm sorry that Amber's last name may be offensive to some (like, oh, her last name labels her, too). I was very young at the time of writing this... also, I do think that the word Black is in some surnames so it's not specifically targeted at Amber's race.

xxx

Amber: A Girl Living in the Time of Slavery


Once, in the time of slavery, there lived a girl named Amber Blacker. She was a slave living on a plantation in a little tiny shack in Georgia.

Amber was separated from her baby sister, Anne, and from her hard working, loving sister, Sofi. Amber could not imagine life without her parents. Everyday Amber walked long distances to get water from the well and bring it to her master.

Her best friend was Becah Magres. Becah had been brought from Africa recently. Her Granny was still in Africa. Becah missed her very much. “I hardly knew her,” she said. “My Momma used to say Granny was the one who helped us all.”

One day, Amber was picking cotton on the plantation, when Becah started singing. When slaves sang, their songs had secret messages:

When will the horses come, one by one? Let’s hope they will come soon. Here they come. Here they come. The carriages they pull. The Freedom Land, the freedom Land, is where they will go to.

She understood this message: the horses and carriage are like trains. The Freedom Land is Canada. All of the slaves Amber knew escaped to Canada.


One day on August 19th, Becah, Amber, and their families escaped on the Underground Railroad with Harriet Tubman. They were scared, but they did not talk. They would get caught if they did. "The first stop is Lulu’s house”, muttered Harriet under her breath. They hid in Lulu’s garden. Her garden was full of weeds so no one could see them.

During the night, they ran to Dunkin’s Barn. Dunkin had seven barrels-- perfect!! Each person hid in a barrel. Then Dunkin put the barrels in a wagon and drove them to their next stop. Day after day, night after night, they ran and hid. Finally, they reached Canada!!

They cheered for joy. ” I must go now,” said Harriet. “Be good and I’ll get your sisters,” she told Amber. Amber smiled. Harriet always kept her promise. Exactly a month later, Harriet brought Anne and Sofi to Canada and they all lived happily ever after.

xx

Oh yeah, and I got a new signature!~ <3

Writer!

Hi y’all! Today I’m using Writer to compose this post! That’s pretty exciting, but some (maybe most?) of you guys don’t know what Writer is.

Well, the official name is Windows Live Writer, and it comes with the Windows Live Essentials pack (free! yay!). I found out about it when I was downloading Windows Live Movie Maker, which is also part of the Essentials pack. Anyway, this program immediately caught my eye. It’s like offline composing, and it’ll publish to your blog for you, and it’s a nice, easy to use interface, and it doesn’t have orange (!!!!!!) and also it lets you edit with your blog template (except for Google fonts like mine; more on that later).

The one thing that I absolutely cannot stand about Writer is the font problem, which of course could probably (in theory) be solved by downloading your default blog font from dafont.com or some other font library to your computer. Because my blog font, “Coming Soon,” is a Google font, it isn’t available on my PC (as of now). Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, because usually when composing in the Blogger window it shows your words in Times New Roman, and you see the final product in the Preview screen, or else after you’ve published the post. But, in the preview screen of Writer, it also shows everything in TNR. I have a gently and slowly decreasing hate for TNR, but it’s nevertheless still there.

So, sorry for my rant about fonts (some people don’t care, but I do not belong to that category of people). And, if you would, you can check out Writer online. It’s had no problems (thus far, which is like the time it took me to write this post )

Oh, speaking of emoticons: Writer is great for this stuff! It provides you with emoticons while blogging. When I was trying to type ( d ) (without the spaces, duh) it turned into this: , and when I was trying to type ( f ) it turned into the lovely .

So I would definitely recommend Writer to those of you in the blogosphere reading this. Thanks for reading and please leave a comment~! <3 thank you, it would make my day

Note: I am not in any way affiliated with Windows or any of its partners. The opinions expressed in this blog post are my own.

RE: "what it takes" to be american by terry

So, +Theresa Kuei  over at The Peaceful Osmanthus wrote a very interesting blog post about a largely debatable topic, and here is my response. All the below stuff is my opinion, although I do reference one other site.

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Firstly, why does everyone say 'the States' when they move abroad? >:( Personally, I think that 'U.S.' is SO much more ear-friendly (that's not a real thing). By the way, the correct capitalization is 'the States', not 'the states'. But whatever, that's not really the point.

Well, I saw this issue on a Grammar Girl article once. She referred to U.S. citizens as 'Americans,' and that sparked a HUGE debate. Click here for her "response article."

Butt, I will say that there's really no substitute for "a word to mean citizens of U.S.A." And note that I said "a word" so don't tell me "U.S. citizens". Honestly, I also assume that "Americans" (in its U.S. usage) could also refer to people who not necessarily are citizens, but who identify as "Americans"-- i.e., a person "from" or "of" the U.S.A.

Ex: illegal immigrants, especially their children (who are still alien, nonetheless). The children, who have probably never visited the country of their heritage, identify as "American" (U.S. usage). But, they may not be citizens. So, in that sense, "Americans" can mean MORE than "citizens of U.S.A." It may just mean "people of U.S.A.", for this particular usage (the so-called "U.S. usage").

In common usage, "Americans" refers to people "of" the United States of America, (and I use the term "of" loosely) but Latin Americans and Canadians, Mexicans, etc., probably DO identify as "Americans" (continental usage). I support the usage of "Americans" in dealing exclusively with U.S. people, but I also agree that it can be used otherwise, making it somewhat confusing. Butt what we have got to understand here is that the full name of USA is "United States of America," and that "America" is actually IN ITS NAME. So, that's why I support using it. There simply is no alternative, and also, it's technically an abbreviation, soo.... yup.

<3 sorry for very long article <3

HAIIIIII-kus

This morning I thought
things would somehow be the same
but they were different

Today I thought that
things would somehow be different
but they stayed the same

Which one was your day?

xx

Um, so, some writing, yeah?

Yeah, I haven't been sharing a lot of writing on here. *Sigh*. Oh well. Here's my entry for this competition, hosted by SmileyFaceGirl......

Times had been tough for forever, or so it seemed to Carmel. Every day, she would look out the window for a sign of a pink lantern, which signaled her parents’ homecoming from their voyage out to sea. But for now, the children would have to manage the little house by the sea by themselves. 

Carmel shivered in the cold December air as she scanned the horizon desperately. The dark clouds warned of a thunderstorm, so she ran inside. Her younger sister, Rosie, was already closing the windows and locking them securely. When the thunder boomed, baby Millie started crying. Carmel rocked her baby sister, keeping her eyes on the door, waiting for her older brother Frederick to come home from his job at the market.

There was a sharp knock on the door. In her anxiety, Carmel forgot to look through the peephole before opening the door, but it turned out to be Mr. June, who was Frederick’s boss. “There’s been an accident;” he said grimly, “Frederick’s been taken to the hospital.”

Carmel’s hands flew up to her mouth. “What happened?” Rosie asked shyly.

“It wasn’t his fault,” Mr. June said quickly. “It was slippery, the car couldn’t see well—“

Carmel felt sick, but she tried to be strong. “We have to go see him straightaway!” she exclaimed, bundling Millie into the stroller. Then the three girls followed Mr. June to the hospital through the rain coming down.

The thunderstorm had left so many casualties. Fisherman had drowned at sea. There was no hope of finding the pink lantern tonight, but Carmel couldn’t help but feel upset at leaving the house. What if the signal came while she was away?

When they reached the hospital, there was a long line of people waiting to visit their loved ones. Carmel recognized Leila, whose husband was a fisherman. She was weeping and praying, her mouth making the shape of “I love you”, but no sound was coming out.

Carmel, pushing the stroller and holding Rosie’s little hand, followed Mr. June into the glaringly lit, crowded hospital.

Announcing the new STYLE section!!!

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My new friend David told me this quote, I have no idea where he got it from but I think it's very "subtly inspiring" which is nice in itself! Well I may be reading too much into this quote (^^) but I think it means that it is only in the human nature to make mistakes, and that making mistakes is okay; but complaining or whining is not. Very positive and firm message! :)

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Well, as you already know, it's almost my first blogiversary here at On Cats and Cantaloupe (two of my favorite things in the world) !!!

So............ I decided to make a couple of changes. *gasp*! Don't worry, the changes will be amazing and I promise to carry them out.

First, a new blog background/template. Did you guys notice that? I love it. It's such a cute template...... I've actually had it stored in my Google Drive for a long time and found it today, whilst cleaning out my Drive (hehe, too many things in there.....)

Second, new blog name! Woot woot. An important notice is that this does not change the blog address. Please do not type "cats+cantaloupe.blogspot.com" into your address box. I assure you, it will not lead you here. It will lead you to a Google page if you are using Chrome. Otherwise........ I have no idea. Probably a "This website does not exist" message, I guess.

Third, I am announcing a..............

I will add the curling hair post to this section, accessible from the top tab labeled "Style", and I am working on another post to put there! Stay tuned!

~ dana

Writing Prompt #3

Hey guys, sorry it's been forever, but here's to the new writing prompt!!

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If you had a chance to go into your favorite story as yourself, what would you do? 


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I, of course, would go into The Sisters Eight series and..... (drumroll) convince them that I am the ninth eight and that there are some people called the Nuevos and the Neufs. (lol) Then I would say that Crazy Serena's evil triplet is also thriving... and so is Lucy and Queen's triplet who is even eviller than Queen! Oh no!!! (P.S. Eights. The Wicket is actually related to you. O.o)

So yeah. Please read the Sisters Eight books. They are hilarious and silly and perfect. <3

Bye bye!

Characters and Books

Today the writing prompt is going to be....

Think about a fictional character, either one in a book you're reading / have read or a story you are writing.

Now here comes the challenge....

Based on the character's personality, name their favorite book / story. Remember, try not to use anything stated in the story.

For example, I was going to use one of my favorite books of all time, When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, but since it's stated in the story (many times actually) that the main character's favorite book is A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, I have decided to use a secondary character, whose name is Annemarie.

Annemarie is a quiet, shy girl. She has epilepsy and has to eat a special diet, but for the sake of being "normal" she has hidden her epilepsy from her friends and got a job at the local sandwich shop. She throws away her "special" homemade lunch everyday for six weeks and eats sandwiches and soda (which is really bad for her) until one day she has a seizure during lunch period. So I would say she must want to fit in a lot to have to hide a disease from her best friend.

Because she wants to fit in and she has a disease, I would recommend Rules, by Cynthia Lord.

Good bye!

P.S. If you happen to find another book that you think would be more fitting for Annemarie, leave me a comment!

A Thought for Today

In class for Lesson 4 we have been studying a translated section of Henry David Thoreau's Walden , so when I found this thought I decided that it would be appropriate for today!

What is the use of a fine house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on. -Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

 That IS inspiring, isn't it?

Now have a laugh at this creative-- and GREEN-- reuse of fabric:



This is one of the lovely scenes from The Sound of Music, the wonderful musical that's been turned into a movie and whatnot.

Maria (mom figure): The children need fabric for their clothes.
Captain (dad figure): No, they are fine.
~~~
Maid: I ordered new curtains.
Maria: Great!
(Maria takes the old curtains and makes them into clothes for the children.)
~~~
Captain: Do you mean to tell me that my children are running around in nothing but old drapes?
Maria (indignantly): I made them into clothes myself from the curtains in my bedroom!

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And this is my favorite clip from The Sound of Music. I know that we started talking about Henry David Thoreau and somehow ended up at a wonderful musical, but still.

Quotes, Quotes, Quotes

These are going to be inspirational thoughts and/or quotes that I will post here! Yay!

This will be mighty similar to the Writing Prompts thing, so it's easy to understand. Let's start!

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A clay pot sitting in the sun will always be a clay pot. It has to go through the white heat of the furnace to become porcelain. -Mildred Witte Stouve

~~~

 Isn't that fascinating? What do you think of the quote? Write down your thoughts in the comments!

Writing Prompts 1

Okay so I've decided to post a number of writing prompts that I hope will help you!

You can access these from the top tab that says writing prompts ^ (up there).

I'm just going to give this a try, so here goes!

I will post 1 new writing prompt / quote to write by in each post, so stay tuned!

WRITING PROMPT 1
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If you could teleport anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?

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Have a nice week, guys!