Taelon's awesome blog!

MEDIEVAL WARFARE REFLECTION

My group was assigned Medieval Warfare. On the day we had to pick our topic of the Middle Ages, it was very hard for me to pick; it was between diseases and warfare. I picked warfare because I got to express the violent side of me. When I saw Alex and Sherif coming over to me, I thought this would be a very fun and awesome project.

When my group was doing the expectations, I started to notice that our group had of lack of ability to stay on track. But I just thought it would get better and that it was only the first week. While we were writing the expectations, we wrote a whole lot for our goals, such as building a catapult, making armor, building a dummy, constructing a documentary and making weapons. I know that’s a lot, but then I thought we could do it. Now, however, I would just stick to one goal. If you have too many things you want to get done, you may only get a few done. That would be a cool famous quote!

When we started researching facts, I saw our group was getting distracted even more. I am sad that we mainly used Wikapeedia but we did because it had so much information. I know we should have used more resources. When we completed our  facts, we realized that it had taken longer then we had expected. By then, I was getting stressed because we had only finished the facts and the other groups were done with that and on to the next step.I felt that our group was always a little behind AND I LIKE TO BE ON TOP OF THINGS.

When it came time to write the script, we had to put all the facts into our own words.  It was during this time that I unfortunately had to start being “the boss guy”.  I had to start telling people what to do because otherwise nothing was going to get done. I don’t want to be a boss and I hate bossing people around. If you are the boss it feels like you have to tell people what to do and it makes me feel like people hate me. Also, I was very mad that Sherif did not do his homework for a long time. When Sherif didn’t do his homework. it threw us way behind. By then, I was  stressed and worried about how it was going to come out. I never really felt like that before. It was a very good experience for me though, because I have never really been a boss before.

This is what I felt like when I had to stand up and be a leader-

Imagine if you were a recruit in the army. You had some your best friends next to you firing bullets. Now you see on your left you have your high general and he is shooting and taking as many guys as he can out with his gun. All of a sudden, he gets shot in the head. Blood is falling down from his forehead and you keep watching. You stop and think for a moment while watching the blood drop from the general’s head. Then you look up and you see your friends and the rest of the recruits firing like crazy. You realize that you need to stand up and direct them because with the way that they are firing, you know you won’t win the battle. So you pick up a gun while the sweat is running down your cheek. Your heart keeps beating so fast. Your mouth is very dry and crisp. You shoot a few bullets from your gun and they hit your friends. Blood drips from their legs but you have carry on with the battle. You command and boss around the rest of the troops. Maybe you don’t want to be the new general, but you have to if you wanted to win the battle. Again you look down at your friends who you shot. Blood keeps gushing out of their legs. You hear them crying with agony. You wish you could help but you can’t because you know you have to keep fighting. After a few minutes (but it feels like a lifetime for you) your team has won the battle. Then you look back at your friends and their legs are gushing blood and you run over quickly. You call a medic and he helps them. While the medic is carrying them on a stretcher, you say you are sorry for shooting them. They respond back saying, “It’s ok, it was war, the battle is over, now we can be friends again”. A tear drips from your eye while the medic is putting them in the helicopter. It is done. The battle is over. You say to your self, “Maybe you lost a lot of men in the battle and you may not be proud of how the battle turned out; but it is over”. You jump on the helicopter and listen to the report of the other two battles. Then you head back home and you have a sigh of relief.

After all the script was done, we finally had fun! We got to make the models and construct the weapons. It was the most enjoyable part of the whole project. It felt like getting one million dollars and spending it. Alex, Sherif and I not could stop laughing. We got this process all on tape too. Unfortunately, the s.d. card went  crazy and we lost all the filming :(. It was like getting $100 then having it burned.

Then we realized we still had to do the documentary. This felt like you just finished buying food and you went home, but you forgot to pay so you had to go all the way back to the store. I wish I had made the documentary first and then made the dummies. I was so stressed at that point because we only had one week left. That’s when I felt like “super boss mc boss pants”. I hate to be in a rush because then you can’t make it your best work, which I was very mad about. I was glad that Shrief did the whole bibliography to make up for the homework he missed.

On the last night, we put it all together and we knew it wasn’t our best work, but we tried and it came out how it came out. We barely checked the factual video which I wish that I could have changed. I did not reach my goals but I realized that sometimes in life not all your goals can be checked off. We tried as hard as we could to complete our group goals but it was definitely not our best work. It felt like we had to improve in every thing. Medieval warfare is really interesting, however, and I would love to do the project again.

After we presented the project, Rob had to evaluate us. I was really scared. I thought he was going to say it was terrible. Surprisingly, Rob was very calm and he like our project! He asked us questions about our work and we responded. After completing the project, I felt I did not really learn as much as I would have liked to.  I already knew a lot about the subject. That was a good lesson though because now I know that next time I pick a project I will do something that I have no idea about (and that interests me).   This time we learned about our mistakes so that we will do better next time. This is what Rob is trying to teach us. That’s a lot better then just giving a grade and saying, “That’s it”. Also Rob said the project was good, but it needed to be edited better. Which is exactly how I felt. Now we know how to use our time and organizational skills better. This project turned out all right, maybe not the best we can do, but we learned from it and that’s what matters.

Yo voy a ir a casa de mi tío.

Yo voy a ir hacer trapecio.

Yo voy a ir a casa.