Tallyn's Bard - Homeschool Blogger

November is a long month

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:09:00 -0600

Unless you are trying to finish a 50,000 word novel in that one month. Well if that's all I were doing it would be easy! There's just so many other things! There's so much school, and orchestra rehearsals, and speech and debate, and other things that are just fun.

It's near the end of Novemeber, almost Thanksgiving. This time last year I was on the point of realizing that I only had 5,000 words in my novel. about four days later I was writing solidly trying to make the 50,000 word mark before the end of November... which even with all my valiant work... I failed :)

Well, so what's happened since I last posted? I went to my first practice tournament of the year (and only one unfortunately) It was really fun! I won must of my rounds, whcih I wasn't expecting. My impromptu speech wasn't very scary, and I didn't mess up on my DI, it was completely memorized :) It was a really fun practice tournament, and I had a lot of fun. I don't have any pictures... oh well... Afterwards we went out to eat, that was fun too :-)

For thanksgiving we are going to visiting my grandparents. The whole ride up I will be writing on my NaNo novel, furiously trying to finish it :) When we get back it will be December... think of that. November will be over... We will have our Orchestra concert and the Messiah concert, my first piano ****** (ever!) and Christmas will be approaching...

I also just finished reading ' 'Till We Have Faces ' by CS Lewis if you've read it tell me what you thought of it! =)

~Ness

Free sheet music

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:48:00 -0600

Have you ever heard a song that you liked and then looked it up online to see if there's a piece of free sheet music for it?
    Often you can find a piece of free sheet music for that song, such as 'The Spinning Song' for piano. But more often than not you can't find what your looking for... At least I can't.
Below are links for four sheet music sites, which don't come up when you google 'free sheet music', they never have for me anyway.

http://imslp.org/ A project to put all out of print music online for anyone to use. This website has a lot of classical music on it.

Music Scores   Has a lot of free arrangements and solos ranging in difficulty levels. Some songs are not free. Also the site has a limit of downloading three files every twenty-four hours if you are not a member. To become a member it costs thirty dollars a year.

Making Music Fun Mostly easy music. Meant for a music teacher resource. It's all free and there's music for a lot of different instruments.

The Session free Irish fiddle tunes. These are arrangements just simple tunes.

My favorite is music scores, except the limitations can be annoying. I also like Imslp a lot but it just depends what your looking for

There you go, have fun! =D

                          ~Ness

picture

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:14:00 -0500
This is the best picture I've ever taken with my webcam.
It's not very good as you might have noticed =)
My brother is gone because he's going to visit a college and he took the camera so that's why I was playing around with the web cam.

Recently:
I have been enjoying the cold weather.
Trying to think up a NaNO novel.
Posting on my blog.
Trying to write speeches and failing :(
writing apolegetics cards.
What I need to do:
I need to do some debate research :)
practice violin
Exiting things that have happened:
I have more apolegetics cards than Alex =)
I ate chocolate trufels yesterday :)

okay that's all for now :)

           ~Ness

intresting

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:01:00 -0500
When I was little and I cut my finger I stuck it in my mouth because it made it feel better. When I got my braces on, they scratched the inside of my cheek but it always healed pretty quickly compared to if I scratched my finger with my braces.
     In the Gospel of John there is the story of Jesus healing a blind man:

"I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
As long as I an in the world, I am the light of the world.
When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made a clay of the spittle and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam. He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.
The neighbors therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind said, Is not this he that sat and begged?
Some said, This is he: others [said]. he is like him: [but] he said, I am [he].
Therefore said they unto him, How were thine eyes opened?
He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes , and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash : and I went and washed, and I received sight" John 9:1:18

I heard this Bible story in church when I was about eight and it dawned on me that maybe spit did heal and Jesus used it so obviously he knew that it healed.

Between this Bible story and my own personal experiInce I always thought that saliva had some sort of healing properties. So the other day I was excited to find an article about how saliva can speed the healing of wounds and some recent studies they did on it. Very interesting article, especially because it confirms my own thoughts. That's always nice. =D
     You should read the article. (I have to be blunt because hinting doesn't work, so I'm just blunt even though it doesn't look good on a written page :)

      It's interesting that Jesus heals the blind man in the Bible using his spit, because often in the Bible when God says things there is more than a moral interest behind it. Such as when God told the Israelites not to eat pork. God was protecting the Israelites. Because pigs have similar anatomy to humans, disease travels easily between pigs and humans. So by not eating pork the Israelites were protected from many diseases.
      Isn't that amazing? By trusting in God the Israelites kept from getting sickness.

I hope you found it all as interesting as I did =)
                   ~Ness

Rainy Rainy day...

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:53:00 -0500

"Rain Rain go away come again another day..."

For probably the first time in my life I understand how someone could feel this. Not that I do feel that way but I understand how it could be felt :) It's been raining for.... forever. Not quite. I don't really want it to go away but if it was like this all the rest of this fall and winter I probably would. Rain is great in the summer when you can play in it but now it's SO cold!

What else besides rain? I've been memorizing a speech for an upcoming practice tournament, as well as going over my cases. I'm rather excited =) I need to practice more impromptu and apolegetics speeches.

On Sunday I had a violin recital. Then we had orchestra rehearsal which was fun.

Saturday our Youth group had a big angle ball game, which was fun =) Angle ball is a sport that is sort of like ultimate frisbee except with a volleyball. Instead a goal there are posts with basketballs on top that you have to knock off.

Friday I had a piano lesson and then speech and debate. I slept over a friend's house (hi a friend!!) and it was so much fun! She helped me with my debate cases which needed help :)

So there is my weekend now that I have fullfilled my duty to my blog I will commence with my week =)

~Nessy Wessy

Prodigy

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:22:00 -0500

Wow! need I say more?

This next one makes me want to cry thinking of my own violin skills... *cries* =D

Check out these other pieces played by Benjamin as well:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDLgpskt578   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cvfu-K0loc

~Ness

Amazing music video, you should watch it! =D

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:34:00 -0500
Wow, they did an amazing job! Good job! =D ~Ness

Philosophy

Wed, 7 Oct 2009 09:29:00 -0500
   'Literally, the love of, including the search after, wisdom; in actual usage, the knowledge of phenomena as explained by, and resolved into, causes and reasons, powers and laws. &hand; When applied to any particular department of knowledge, philosophy denotes the general laws or principles under which all the subordinate phenomena or facts relating to that subject are comprehended. Thus philosophy, when applied to God and the divine government, is called theology; when applied to material objects, it is called physics; when it treats of man, it is called anthropology and psychology, with which are connected logic and ethics; when it treats of the necessary conceptions and relations by which philosophy is possible, it is called metaphysics. &hand; Philosophy has been defined: tionscience of things divine and human, and the causes in which they are contained;'

That is the definition of philosophy from the Websters dictionary, 1913 edition. So why am I writing about philosophy anyway? Because it's important! Mainly because I've been researching it for debate and I found it interesting. Philosophy is the search after truth, in case you didn't read the definition at the top of the page in small writing (if you did leave a comment so that i can congratulate you if you didn't leave a comment anyway .)
     So today I'm just going to write about innatism and empiricism two ideas that relate to the branch of philosophy about how we gain knowledge.

     Empiricism is the idea that at birth the mind is a blank slate or a white sheet of paper on which experience leaves its mark.
     Innatism is the contrasting idea that the mind is born with knowledge and is not a blank slate, it asserts that not all knowledge is gained through experience.

   Plato, who believed in Innatism, thought that the soul already existed and was joined to the body at birth.
   Empiricists such as Aristotle and John Locke, held that the mind was a
"tabula rasa" the Latin for blank slate. They argued the idea that humans are not born with knowledge, but rather knowledge comes from experience and perception.
Avecianna a Muslim scholar said:
      "Human intellect at birth is rather like a tabula rasa, a pure potentiality that is actualized through education and that knowledge is attained through "empirical familiarity with objects in this world from which one abstracts universal concepts"
     Later on this idea was further deepened by Ibn Tufail a 12 century philosopher who was the first man to write a philosophical novel. In this novel he writes the story of a boy living alone, he shows how the boy's mind forms from experiences from a tabula rasa to that of an adult, in complete isolation from society on a desert island, through experience alone.
    On the other hand Innatism says that an innate idea is a concept or knowledge which is universal to all humanity. Rene Descart thought that a knowledge of God is innate in everyone. Empiricists argued that we could only find out about God through reason.
Some examples of innate ideas are:
avoindance of harms (such as fear of falling of a cliff)
ethical truths
good and evil
metaphysical notions
God
Souls
So those are two sides of the argument, either we are born with minds like blank slates which experience and education write upon, or ideas are placed in our mind and humans are born with knowledge universely known throughout mankind.
    What do you think? Which side do you agree with? Must we gain all knowledge through experience, or are we possibly born with it?
       Leave a comment, tell me what you think!
                          ~Ness

The Last Unicorn

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:51:00 -0500

Here are the lyrics for the song that always comes on when you get on my blog I'll post for real sometime... :)

When the last eagle flies
Over the last crumbling mountains.
And the last lion roars
At the last dusty fountain.
In the shadow of the forest,
Though she may be old and worn,
They will stare unbelieving
At the last unicorn.

When the first breath of winter
Through the flowers is icing,
And you look to the north,
And a pale moon is rising.

And it seems like all is dying,
And would leave the world to mourn,
In the distance, hear the laughter
Of the last unicorn.

I'm alive!
I'm alive!

When the last moon is cast
Over the last star of morning.
And the future has past,
Without even a last desperate warning.
Then looking to the sky where
Through the clouds, a path is formed
You can see her
How she sparkles!
It's the last unicorn!

I'm alive!
I'm alive!

I'm alive!
I'm alive!
I'm alive!
I'm alive!

~Loreena Mckeintt

Wind and Rain

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 09:14:00 -0500

So maybe it's time for a new post...

     Well Wednesday the weather was amazing it was all misty rain and cold. Katy and I went to the nursing home with a bunch of other people and we played music. Katy also brought her awesome, so cool, mandolin and we played fiddle music together, whcich was fun! Then we went back to Katy's house and played. (yeah played not 'hung out' that's like the teen age way of saying played... =)

   Yesterday, Friday, I went to piano lesson and I got a new song, a Chopin Waltz in MINOR wich is cool. And then we had speech and debate afterwards and I got to debate in my first LD round EVER! It was awesome and fun. I find it so annoying when you know exactly what you want to say and you can't get it out!

     One more cool thing! I wrote a song for my harp and it's sort fo medieval sounding. I also figured out how to get finale notepad to print the sheet of music properly so that there isn't any big space in between the systems. Anyways that may have sounded like      "kfhlsfgljkgja;tlkdjalk af;gfdjkg;a " but it wasn't it was awesome!

    Well there you go and other than that I've been doing school, practicing music and working on debate and apolegetics.

           ~Ness