"Monkeying around" with Taxonomy, Set Theory, and Venn Diagrams

                         

                        Black and White Colobus Monkey

In my class humanities, we took a trip to the zoo one morning in order to collect some photos of animals that had caught our eye the previous day. Now, I originally chose an ugly small monkey called the "Golden-headed lion tamarin." To my disappointment, that specific monkey had decided they weren't interested in a photoshoot, and shortly, neither was I. With no hesitation attached, I quickly abandoned my original subject, and began recording a video of a skunk monkey (or the black and white Colobus monkey, even though skunk monkey is a much more interesting name).

 I must assume you don't know what we were even doing at a zoo, taking random pictures of animals with no explanation. So in favor of you, the reader, I must briefly explain WHY this is relevant. 

Our first action project for this school year (and my first in general), is entirely tied back to all the different topics we've touched on. We've talked about taxonomy, set language, Venn diagrams, and probably other things I can't remember off the top of my head. Am I gonna explain what any of those things mean? No, I'll explain them when the time comes. For now, I'll let you escape from this long unnecessary introduction, and read my work. Enjoy, or not.

My very special ugly monkey.

I'm gonna give you more context on what kind of ugly monkey I'm talking about, because I'm fairly certain that you do not know what a "Black and white Colobus monkey" is off the top of your head. If you do, great. Pat yourself on the back and continue reading because I got a little bit more for you to know while you're here. For one, did you know that Colobus monkeys actually are a one of a kind due to the fact they're the only monkey without a thumb? They also are native to Africa, and I may have lied about them being ugly because they're decently cute. Honestly could make really great plushies.
Aside from that,  I've got to explain a few things about this cutie of an animal. For one, these guys primarily feed on insects and plants they scavenge around the African rainforests. Generally, they live a fairly peaceful life of sleeping in, relaxing on tree branches, and socializing in groups with one another. They warn each other from danger with a series of varied clicks they do with their tongues, and males will take a very strange defensive stance when their territory is threatened.
I know, you might be very eager to find out what this monkey looks like, and if you're like any other normal person, you've already looked at the image of the Colobus monkey. This is the reference photograph I used for my art piece you'll be seeing later in a "beautiful" collage, but more on that later. Here's the photo I took, and now you continue onto the next part.

                                      

Taxonomy, and all that good stuff.

We'll start off simple, or at least the most simple to explain for me. Taxonomy is one of three ways we learned how people group things in humanities. This is considered the most scientific way out of the three to group things (by me of course, only because it's easy to keep track of what you're doing). Taxonomy groups things based on characteristics.
Back then it was a little bit more simplistic because you could point at a bat and a bird and call them the same because they have wings. But now, everybody thinks that's stupid and it should go beyond just that. So it happened, now they're based on multiple characteristics. They're determined by different sections in a chart. Those sections you ask? Well hoo boy, am I happy to explain it to you. It's really simple, all you gotta memorize is KPCOFGS. Too many random letters to memorize? Too bad. Kidding. It's about to get worse.  

You see, each of those letters stands for something individually, if you hadn't already figured it out. You got kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus. This is what we learned in class, and I'm gonna be presenting my own work of using this system through my work, so hopefully you'll get a better grasp on its function. If you don't, I'm feeling generous so I'll leave an explanation down below the image because I'm nice (that and I also want a good grade but that's not important to you).

If you don't get it, you're alright. I didn't either, we all didn't at one point, but now you're gonna because I'm gonna explain it to you.
Kingdom - A general category, VERY broad. If it's an animal, you put animalia like I did. It determines whether it's a plant, animal, or bacteria. There's other categorizes too, but I'm not here to lecture you.
Phylum- As we're going down this list, you'll notice these will get more specific over time. Phylum is a way to classify plants and animals. Chordata is broad, it describes mammals, amphibians, birds, and reptiles.
Class - This is where it gets more specific, or narrows it down. This closes it in on groups you might be familiar with, the one I chose is mammalia, which has its defined traits listed there to what makes it a mammal.
Order - Might've noticed how it says "Primates," it really just starts narrowing down to the animal/plant/whatever's literal race at this point.
Family - Describes majority of the features, basically you can look at it and figure out what makes it that thing.
Genus - Just the name, just put the name and make it easier for all of us.

Now that this part's over, we can move on to the next part of it. Eyes still open? No? Fair enough.

The Art of Circle Thingies (Venn Diagram)

The art of grouping things in circles, not only is it frustrating to draw, it gets kind of hard to track what is what since you're just looping everything together. Now like I mentioned before, we did a little bit of learning on this since we've already kind of picked up things from other assignments in our life on venn diagrams on the way, and I'm really hoping I don't have to explain how you do Venn diagrams. To explain what I'm gonna show you, remember that I said we went to the zoo, we took cute pictures of animals, and now we're here. Well, we did that in groups. The strategic mind of Aaron was to force us to make Venn diagrams and find similarities and differences between our three different animals. It wasn't that painful, took like twenty minutes to actually figure out what was what. So here's it is (I seriously hope I'm not losing points by not explaining something I learned to do in like 6th grade).

(Gotta give credit to Harrison, saved me so much time making this)

Set Theory is a Thing.

Set theory.. the thing I saved last.. almost.. when it comes to explaining it. You know why I don't really like set theory? It's literally another language I got to learn. I barely know how to speak Spanish and then set theory comes around the corner with its big set of rules and slams it down on my head. I'll try to explain as best as I can, and then show you my apprentice work of set theory. 

To start off, like everything else in this blogpost/essay/whatever you call it, it is yet another way to group things (give it up for round three everybody, round three), except this one has more rules than anything else here and it is gonna be painful to explain.

Set theory uses brackets, =, capitalization, ⋂, ⋃, and subsets. Do I know how to use subsets? Not really, but I'm here to take risks and lose big time. You have to start every set with its chosen topic like "Bananas" or "A", and then do A = {whatever in here that fits your group, but with no capitals like this.} Now that you've gotten all that I know about set theory, it is now time to flex my inability to understand anything but English. Here are five sets that I had to make on my animal, and the other animals you saw in the venn diagram.

A = {fur, warm blooded, births live young, long tail, small, eyes}

B = {tall, long tongue, births live young, long tail, eyes, warm blooded, long ears }

C = {fur, small, paws, long ears, long tail, eyes, warm blooded, births live young}

A U C = {fur,warm blooded, births live young, long tail, small, paws, long ears}

B n C = {warm blooded, births live young, eyes, long ears}

Not all too hard, but this is just me doing the basics of it because going any farther than that would probably give me a brain tumor. 

The Finale, The Very Great Big Finale.

Nearing the end of this AP, it's so sad. We really got to know each other, but all things come to an end, including unnecessarily long AP's like this. My great finale is to reveal my GIF that I had been hiding from you this entire time. I know, you're excited. I'm excited to show it to you, so here it is, in all its glory.

Yup, that's right. There is nothing. Why you might ask? Because my attempt at being creative with a gif had been severely limited. I had 20 images, it over exceeded their length requirement, file size. So even if I had succeeded passing the file size for an average gif, the speed in which it went would've been too fast to actually read. The highest I could go was 0.7 seconds. I don't think you can read that fast, because neither can I. So this is the end of my AP, a fairly big disappointment seeing how I couldn't flex my GIF to you, but the limits of the internet have dumbed down to me making a boring gif without any emotion, and did I wanna do that to you, my fellow reader? No not really, reading what I showed you in a screenshot with multiple red circles doesn't sound fun to me, so despite me losing a handful of points, I won't be having a GIF because I refuse to dumb it down to just two seconds of seizure-inducing blares of red circles everywhere on a mosaic.

Now I'm gonna talk about things i would've wanted to improve with this AP, versus the things I did well. A handful of things I could've done better is for one, tried to take bigger risks on this AP. Such as with the set theory section, but considering how bad I am at managing my time when it comes to homework, it's a little bit more rushed than anticipated. That, and I would've actually loved to have included my GIF since I had planned to present it to the class (then I ended up getting sick so here we are), and the whole "file size too big" was very annoying. One thing I did well was being very lengthy with my explanations (as you can tell, maybe it was a little unnecessary but it is so much fun to do), and also adding a sense of tone in my writing instead of having it being some monotone generic student project, attempting at being the most formal, uninteresting essay created. So I tried to tackle the whole "don't make it boring" aspect that Aaron was praying to all of us for. You could tell by the looks in his eyes that he had suffered quite a bit with generic APs, so I hope this was fairly refreshing for you bud.

That's all there is to it, except here's the collage in all its glory.

Till the next AP?

Story Of Raguu, And How The Earth Came to Be

   

Introduction.


What you're about to read here is an origin story I have created of how Earth came to be. Why am I doing this you might be asking? Well, this all ties back to my class "Stories." Over a few weeks, we've taken the time to figure out how to use adjectives, similes, metaphors, and adverbs. We pulled examples from origin stories, practiced finding them inside folklore of other cultures on how things came to be, and other stories like Magnolia Rose. We've also had a visitor explain to us the art of storytelling through her own life story, and her own card game focused on storytelling. My personal experience coming from this AP is being able to enjoy the flexibility it gave me in what I could do, since the limit is simply unlimited. Overall, it felt natural to write a story like this, despite some writer's block that happens to just about everybody. I believe this story shows a little bit of the best my writing skills can offer, and I hope you find it up to your own standards. Enjoy, fellow reader.


Story Of Raguu


And How the Earth Came to Be


In the beginning, there was nothing but a pitch-black abyss, stones formed from the dust of time, and an entity known as Raguu. Raguu was a worm-like being, formed from stones strung together like a necklace, held together by his spinal cord, with eyes glowing bright like a sun, and teeth as large and square as stone pillars. He swam through the abyss with the pride he took in his swiftness and elegance, so much in fact that he closed his eyes with a grin, beaming with confidence. As he swam through the cold abyss with no acknowledgment of failure ever to exist, a sharp-tipped boulder floated through unexpectedly at a higher speed than the rest. Raguu hadn’t realized his error until it was too late to evade his soon-to-be fate. The boulder pierced right through Raguu’s eyelid, and permanently rid him of vision from his left eye. Raguu released a screech of anger, as his left eye gushed out with his pride, falling into the abyss. Furious, Raguu unleashed his wrath on nearby boulders, unconscious of the molten lava formed from rage pouring out of him, enclosing one boulder in particular in a molten shell.





Raguu finally washed of anger, began to cry from his remaining good eye, the numbness of rage had washed, and the pain had sunk in. The tears from Raguu fell below onto the flaming boulder, shortly cooling down the newly formed land on this boulder. As he continued to cry, it began to fill the cracks of the boulder with oceans, lakes, and ponds. From the new lands created, formed fresh new soil. Raguu slowly looked below himself and had found the blooming planet to ease his pain with a small sense of happiness. Raguu’s bright eye began to allow plants to grow on the surface, sprouting all sorts of flora. The blood that had leaked from his eye had now fallen onto the planet, seeping deep into the soil and sea. From his blood, he formed fish and mankind from the soil and salt. Rising from the earth, the first man was born, and the fish curiously swam around shore. Mankind was born with no tongue to speak, and Raguu had no intention to change that, as he enjoyed the beautiful silence of his world. Born from Raguu’s blood and hatred of failure, the first man took his first few steps towards the shore, furious of his silence. The fish happily swam near the shore like Raguu once did in the abyss. Approaching the fish, mankind’s first known kill occurred. Raguu was horrified, still with fear as he watched the man strip the fish of its skin, bones, and meat.





Mankind used the very bones to carve its tongue from clay. Raguu was on the verge of destroying humanity, out of pure anger once again. But the human spoke in defense, born of Raguu, had known how to speak his tongue. With a voice strong enough to reach Raguu's ears, he spoke. "My creator, I know not what I am to do on this planet you've made me in. I can sense your anger, the same that brought me life, and possibly my death. But I will make a promise, so long as you let me live long enough to do good on it." Raguu withdrew his anger, thinking for a moment. Slowly, he responded, his booming voice shattered the still waters into violent waves and tides all around the disciple. Standing his ground, unshaken by the winds swirling around him, he waited for his words to reach him. "What promise do you make to me, my creation?" He asked sternly, demanding in tone. The disciple spoke quick, as he knew his life depended on it. "You have no hands to create any more than what you see here, so I propose that I create for you. These fingers and tools will give beauty to all that pleases you, as long as you let me live to invent." The confident disciple said with haste. To make good on his word, the disciple grasped clumps of clay and carved with the bones of the fish, bringing life to the exact fish that existed only moments ago. He shortly tossed it into the ocean, and it swam away as if nothing had happened. Raguu's tail swung back and forth in the abyss, like that of a curious cat. Shortly, his voice struck the world again like lightning, booming with the force of thunder. "I will let you live, but not for long. You are born from my blood, formed from anger. My anger does not last, and so neither shall you. Your time is limited, so make good on your word, disciple." Those were the last words the disciple was to hear for years to come, as Raguu now only wished to watch in peace what the disciple would do with such power. Raguu circled the world with his one good eye, the sun, and his closed eye was the moon.


As the years passed, the disciple continued to create and create all that breathed. The flora had grown on its own, spreading in variety without the disciple's acknowledgment of it ever-growing. He had created more humans like him, the first woman and man formed from clay. Due to them not being formed from the blood of Raguu, they would not die like the disciple would. Instead, like all other animals made from clay, it would perish from rot. So the two went off, creating a civilization while the disciple busied himself with creation, making all animals that came to mind, regardless of whether they were good or bad quality.

Another handful of years passed, and the disciple was nearing the end of his days. His carving got slower, his hands wrinkled from the curse of time. The anger of Raguu inside him was burning low, a flame short to extinguish. The disciple knew this, and so he stopped carving, placing his tools down, cracked from years of use. Looking up to the night sky, he yelled as hard as his old lungs could muster. "Raguu, my promise has been fulfilled, and I wish to request one last thing before I pass away!" The words echoed into the night sky. Raguu swam around back to his disciple, and the sky turned to daylight as he looked down at him. "What is your last wish, disciple?" Raguu questioned, his voice shaking the tides once more like before. "I wish for you to give me a name you can remember me by." The disciple said, keeping his gaze to the burning eye of Raguu. Raguu's tail flailed back in forth slowly, as he was absorbed in thought. "You shall be known as "Animavita," as you are the life and soul of all you see around you. You'll live on through your creations, and they shall grow with your spirit." Animavita would nod his head, pleased with his new name. With that, his last breath was taken, as the anger Raguu had passed onto him had now faded from him. Turned into nothing, like the abyss Raguu was birthed from, Animavita left the world he had helped create. Tears began to fall once more on the world, the second rain caused by Animavita's fall.

It is said that every time rain pours, Raguu mourns Animvita's death once more.














Raguu around the burning rock of what was soon to become Earth.