"If you wait, people will forget your camera and the soul will drift up into view."

Famous photographer Steven McCurry was born in 1950 in Philadelphia. When he was young, he always wanted to be a documentary filmmaker because he wanted to tell the story of the world. But when he graduated from Cum Laude university, he joined a newspaper as a photographer. He realized that photos too, could tell stories and not soon afterwards, McCurry went to India to freelance as a photojournalist. But it's when he crossed the Pakistan border, he's career started. McCurry's photographs are sometimes joyous but sometimes painful because he focuses on the human consequences of war but the photos always show emotion, the soul. He once said "if you wait, people will forget your camera and the soul will drift up into view." I think Steven McCurry's best photo is the all famous Afghan Girl because it tells me my own version of a story and every time I look at it, it bombards me with emotions. I could almost feel myself drowning in the unhappiness and seriousness of the picture. Whenever i try to look around the picture, it's like my eyes forces me to look back at the Afghan Girl's eyes. The picture itself gives me this eerie feeling. I think McCurry is trying to show us the misery of the people in war because the picture doesn't show any signs of joy or freedom. The Afghan Girl's eyes seem to follow you, McCurry did this on purpose because he wanted that effect so he took a close up picture of her face and planted her eyes right in the middle. This photo is one of the many photos where he does a close up on the human face. Maybe this photo can convince the people of Afghanistan to stop fighting each other after they have seen the sadness in the photo and realize that they to, feel the same way the Afghan Girl does after all, pictures are better than words. This is a great picture because it has all the elements, like size, foreground, background, color and the best, it tells humanity too. The photo shows a journey, what the Afghan Girl has been through in her life but we wouldn't know for sure what it was that made her soul look so serious in the picture. I think this photo will last long into the future as a symbol of proverty.

Jason: Is it true?

Jason and the Argonauts is a famous myth, written in 4th century BC by Apollonius. In the myth Jason was the son of the king in Iolcus, but his uncle, Pelias had usurped the throne. But Pelias lived in fear because he was scared of losing what he had taken so unjustly. Pelias kept Jason's father a prisoner and would have murdered Jason at birth, but Jason's mother deceived Pelias by mourning as if Jason had died. Meanwhile Jason was carried to the cave of Chiron the Centaur. Chiron was famous for teaching and helping many great heroes so he taught Jason everything. When Jason became older, Jason set out like a "proper" hero to claim his rightful throne.

He met his uncle and demanded that he to give up the thorn but he refused but he did promise Jason that is he gets the legendary golden fleece. An impossible quest. But that didn't stop Jason. Great heroes couldn't resit to go on this quest so Jason hired and made a crew of them, including the all mighty Hercules who has the strength of a thousand men. Orpheus who's music can cut as sharp as knifes and the great huntress Atalanta. The Argonauts.

He had faced many difficult challenges through out the journey like the harpies and the clashing rocks. When he arrives upon the land where the golden fleece was, the king of the land offered a deal with Jason, if he could accomplish the tasks set out for him, he would kindly give the fleece to him. Meanwhile the king's daughter fell in love with Jason, helping him with all the tasks. Without her, Jason would be nowhere. After Jason and the Argonauts had the fleece, Jason promised to love Media, the daughter of the king, for the rest of his life. But when he breaks the promise back at his homeland with another princess. Media found out and cursed him but the discovery impacted her so much that her whole life changed, turning from good to evil. Jason didn't live long after he's gained the golden fleece because his death was caused by his our ship, the Argo, when a piece of oak fell on his hand, knocking the life out of him.

Who was Jason? Was he really a hero? Who were the real Argonauts? question not yet answered. I think there is no right or wrong answer to these questions, for examples; we'll never know if Hercules really existed or was made up. Only a fool would answer with a yes or no because he has no evidence unless he built a time machine and was able to control time and space to go back in time to check. And there are so many versions of the story, changing only by a little though but still has the main idea. With more than one version, it suggests to me that the story might be made up but the video we watch -The Real Jason and The Argonauts Part 1- says that most myths are based on true facts. What do you think?

For centuries, people think it was just a old legend but with modern day technology and the help of archaeologists, we were able to find evidence of Jason. Stones and artifacts were dug up by archaeologists and some of them had "history" carved on to them. And with high tech scanning, archaeologists found lost ruins, buried under tons of rock and soil. They were able to uncover a part of the city where Jason lived. History and geography supports the statement that Jason was real. But are you convinced?

Picture URL: http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbnail/223292/1/Jason-And-The-Argonauts-1925.jpg

Curiosity can, sometimes, be not a good thing...

Have you ever heard the phase “curiosity killed the cat”? Well it doesn’t kill but it can get you into trouble and it portrays curiosity can lead to change and devastation like in the myths Pandora’s box, a Greek myth, and Orphan boy, and African myth. Zeus gave the box to Pandora because he knew that she wouldn’t be able the resist opening the box because of curiosity. She opened it sometime later, letting all the monsters out, showing devastation but there was hope, showing change. The same thing happened in the Orphan boy myth since it was curiosity who caused the trouble. When Orphan boy left, the old man’s crops failed and his animals died, showing devastation again. Sometimes it’s curiosity who’s the boss not you…

Pandora's box picture URL: http://www.amazon.com/Pandoras-Box-Novel-Allison-Hobbs/dp/1593090110/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254997951&sr=1-1

Orphan boy picture URL: http://www.amazon.com/Orphan-Boy-Tololwa-M-Mollel/dp/0395720796/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254998009&sr=1-1

Some Facts about My Name

Sometimes people get mixed up with my name and other names like Martin, Melvin or even Marbin or something like that, but the good thing is that once they know it, they'll remember it since it's kind of easy to pronounce and not hard to memorize cause it really fits me. I am not sure why people had NEVER EVER made fun of my name before cause maybe it's not funny or anything but if they did make fun of it, I might have forgotten it. Mostly everyone has I story behind their name but I don't and I am getting pretty mad...But I do know that my last name means horse in Chinese. When I searched up my name on the Internet, it said that Marvin means; "uncertain, possibly eminent marrow." I have no idea what that means what sometimes, I am uncertain like on the first day or school, my humanities teacher asked me what my name is, I don't know why but couldn't answer for some reason and till this day I still can't figure it out, I said "errr..... Marvin!" Some people laughed. And now, sometimes at school, when my humanities teacher calls me, she adds a short "errr..." before saying my name, Marvin.

I chose the picture above because first of all, it is kind of funny and second because this was the best one I could find.

Picture URL: http://rlv.zcache.com/hello_my_name_is_business_card-p240036506603535651t58m_400.jpg

Creation Myth Paragraph

The Hopi Creation Myth

In the Hopi creation myth, there were two gods, on named Twa (boy) and the other named Kokyanwuhti (girl). The two gods had a lot of work to do so they divided themselves to share the labor, Twa made a copy and Kokyanwuhti made a copy of themselves. Their "clones" married each other and produced a lot of other gods but then Twa and Kokyanwuhti had a great idea. They would make the Earth between the Heaven and the underworld and whatever Twa thought of, Kokyawuhti made from clay, they formed everything on Earth and breath life into some of them. Then they made humans because they needed a creature in their image to look after they creation.

I chose the picture above because in the picture, it shows humans made from clay just like the ones in the myth

Picture URL: http://www.hillphotographic.com/people/images/london004.jpg

The reason for the new title and picture

Don't you think my new title and picture is awesome? Don't you think it's deep and meaningful? Well this post is about why I chose this quote (title) and picture. First of all, I found the quote then I had to find a matching picture it was quite simple really, the quote "When you have completed 95% of your journey, you are only half way there." was from a Japanese proverb quote. I chose this quote because it goes with my favorite sentence "so close yet so far". It is really descriptive and it tells you how your journey never ends in any kind of way. But it might be a bit confusing because 95% is like almost the WHOLE thing but it says "only half way there". Maybe it's saying there are more beyond the journey you are on, more to it.

Look at the picture...
Look at the road and see how long it is? Doesn't it match the quote? Look at the guy with his dog, the guy would be saying "What the? My GPS says the finish line was right here! Where the heck did it go?" and the dog would say "Yeah, Where it go? I have no idea... maybe it is a way of telling us there is more ahead!" and guess what? The dog is right!

Picture URL: https://fineartamerica.com/images-medium/long-road-home-ally-benbrook.jpg

Ohhhhhhh YEAH! ;D

I am back! Yeah! Errr... awesome, ummm... OK... For the people who actually reads my posts, I am back and this year in grade 7!!! Which means, I'll start writing posts again and my humanities teacher said we are gonna do a lot with our (my classmates and stuff) blogs! HAHAHAHA!!! I rock, moving on from 6th grade! But that's bad cause I get more homework and my parents force me to do other stuff I can't mention in this post, it's too terrible...but really, 7th grade is all right though. I have been at rest for over 2 months (well, it was spring break and 3 months before the break meaning I haven't wrote for about 5 months :P ), in China, but now I am back in ******** and school started like 4 weeks ago. In china there was nothing to do (so it realllllllllllyyyy sucked) but to learn Chinese which was BORING... but at least I met my family members :P. Anyways, I'm back and ready to write some posts again just like I used too. (not to mention Kevin, he is probably gonna write like 10 posts per month) :P he writes too much but, you'll never know...