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northcountryschool · 6 years ago

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March 1, 2019

Winter term came to a close this week, bringing with it Intersession—our week of special programming—and the 9th-grade trip to Utah.

During Intersession, our 4th-8th graders dove into different areas of interest, spending their days split into morning and afternoon sessions. Our 9th graders hiked, skied, canyoneered, and camped in Utah’s majestic protected spaces, bonding as a group. Our farmers spent the week readying the sugarhouse and barns for spring maple sugaring and lambing. On Saturday, the community will come together to show one another what they have learned and created during Intersession before departing for spring break.

EXPLORING

Intersession week provides our students the opportunity to see new places and experience the world in different ways. In Elie and Erica’s Farm, Food, and Fun session, students including Justin, Kalina, and Sonya baked healthy treats for our farm animals, helped with maple sugaring preparation, and visited the cows and milking goats at nearby Asgaard Farm & Dairy. Jess J. and Madeline’s Backcountry Skiing group ventured into the wilderness, finding routes through trees and seeking untouched powder as they snowshoed up and then skied down nearby Mt. Jo, and skinned up and skied down Whiteface Mountain. Steph and Larry’s Ice Climbing session gathered up their crampons and ice-axes, taking on the cliffs of Pitchoff Mountain, located just down the road from campus. Lisa’s group took a culinary tour around the world, preparing delicious dishes including spaetzle, gyros, macaroons, and koeksisters and sharing the treats with the community.

CREATING

Art took many forms during Intersession this week, allowing students to explore a variety of mediums. Courtney and Caroline’s C&C Costume and Dance Company session was full of color and movement, and students spent time working on costumes for the spring production of As You Like It and learning some dance moves from the Koresh Dance Company, a professional dance troupe visiting from Philadelphia.

In Dave’s Robotics session, students including Frank, Yosef, and Angelica built robots that were put to the test in head-to-head battles. In Kyra and Sam’s Woodcarving session, students made bowls, spoons, and butter knives out of lumber cut from our forest. Lauren’s group worked with visiting fabric artist Dawn Klotzko to sew rainbow-hued pillows and cuddly monsters. Garth’s Stop-motion Animation session spent the week taking and editing together hundreds of photos to create short films.

To view one of Kentaro’s stop-motion movies, click here.

EXAMINING

Some of our Intersession groups chose to take a closer look at themselves, their communities, and the larger world. In visiting filmmaker Tyler Johnson’s (NCS ‘93) Moviemaking session, students including Frank, Baxter, and JT spent the week filming and editing footage for short films. JT chose North Country School’s community traditions for the focus for his film, much like the students in Kelt’s Podcasting session. That group recorded and edited an audio piece about our barn and animals, with some assistance from guest expert Todd Moe of North Country Public Radio. Tom’s group used photos from the year to create photo collages that will be used in the 2018-19 school yearbook, while Selden asked her students to think critically about humanity and culture in her History Through Movies session. In Mallory’s Zines session, students Silvia, Jessica, Wyatt, Grace, and Tony created original short magazines in areas of their interest. Student Wyatt’s zine allowed him to custom-make monsters, while others told horoscopes or focused on favorite foods.

MOVING

In former NCS student Ashlee Virtue’s (NCS ‘06) Hip Hop Dance session, students Tsinat, Tiri, Teagan, and Josie learned moves for a performance that will be part of the Intersession showcase. Gondola Goals and Summit Sights sessions got out on the ski trails, working on their Nordic and alpine ski skills. Students including Tristan, Summer, Parker, and Hart pushed through cold temperatures, blustery snow, and fierce winds on Whiteface Mountain and at Mt. Van Hoevenberg. Students in Kayla and Rob’s Swimming session spent the week at the Paul Smith's College pool, building confidence and having fun in the water. They practiced treading water, basic swimming stroke techniques (including breast stroke, backstroke, and freestyle), and ended their days with some free-swim time.

PREPARING FOR SPRING

While our students dove into different areas of interest, our farmers, along with teacher and former farm intern Gavi, readied campus for the upcoming maple sugaring and lambing seasons. Trees were tapped and buckets were hung in the sugarbush, and the sap collection tanks and evaporator were cleaned. Maple sap will begin to run once temperatures are above freezing during the day and below freezing at night, at which point the community will join together for the collection and boiling that provide School and Camp with syrup for the year. At the barn, sheep-shearer Mary stopped by to help ready our ewes for the upcoming lambing season, which generally begins in early April. Shearing the flock before lambing helps ensure that our ewes will have an easier time giving birth and nursing their newborn lambs. The wool fleeces will be skirted (cleaned) and spun into fiber for our arts program.

9th GRADE UTAH TRIP

Every February, our 9th-grade class travels outside of the Adirondack Park for an adventure and bonding experience. This year the class and four teachers traveled to the Utah desert, visiting some of our country’s spectacular protected spaces. The group hiked, camped, and canyoneered, exploring Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks and Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park. Students also spent the day skiing at Brian Head Ski Resort and ventured out for some nighttime desert stargazing and early morning sunrise viewing, taking in the majestic landscape and appreciating some time together as they approach their final term at North Country School.

We wish you a good end to your own winter season, and we will return with updates from our mountain campus on Friday, March 29, 2019.

For more information about the #This Week At NCS blog, contact Becca Miller: [email protected]

For general school information, call 518-523-9329 or visit our website: www.northcountryschool.org

#ThisWeekAtNCS

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jotawakening-blog · 7 years ago

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29 Fentuary, 5A 169: A Swathe Through Asgarnia

I begin the day with a breakfast of freshly caught cod, then get going on the business that brought me here to Port Sarim: catching the ferry to Entrana to learn all I can about the whereabouts of the Holy Grail. Of course, Entrana has strict policies on weapons, so before I board the boat, I use the deposit box conveniently located nearby to stow away my combat gear.

Once the ferry lands, I head straight for the basilica, and ask the High Priest there whether he knows anything of the Grail. He does, it would seem: it did pass through the island some time ago. However, it’s not here any more, and he doesn’t care enough to tell me where it went. Just as I’m about to get on my way, to look around the island myself, an old crone who overheard my conversation with the High Priest pulls me aside, and tells me that if I’m in search of the grail, I’d best hurry: ‘A fisher king is in pain’. Perplexed, I bid her explain, and she does, as best she can. Apparently, the Grail has found its final resting place in the realm of someone called the Fisher King. This realm is a pocket plane adjacent to ours, which can be entered at a point where the boundary between the planes is weakest, by blowing a magic whistle there. This spot is marked by six great stone heads, whose gaze converges on the correct location. Ah! I think I know what heads she means! But, I ask, who is the Fisher King? She has little to say on this, only that he is ‘the owner and slave of the grail’. I guess I shall have to find out myself. As for the whistle: I can find it in a haunted manor in Misthalin (almost certainly Draynor Manor), but only if I’m carrying something from the Fisher King’s realm. Hm, I guess the tablecloth Brother Galahad gave me might work? Anyway, I doubt I’ll be able to find out any more here, so it’s probably time I left Entrana and got on with my adventures in the Eastern Kingdoms.

So I get not he boat and take it back to the mainland. My plan now is to go down to Mudskipper Point and see what my old friend Thurgo can do to fix King Alvis’ ancient axe. For this, I obviously need the axe, so I head up to Falador to retrieve it from the bank and get geared up again. Also, I take out my catspeak amulet: assuming that Bob’s still wandering the world instead of staying at home, I may be able to track him down around here. For the same reasons, I withdraw the enchanted key. It’s noticeably warmer here than in Kandarin or on Karamja, but not warm enough to indicate treasure anywhere nearby.

In any event, I take the axe to Thurgo and explain that I need it restored. Thurgo, naturally, takes an interest in the weapon, and asks me where, exactly, I might have gotten it. I tell him it’s from Keldagrim, but spare him the embarrassing details of how I came by it. Thurgo nods. ‘We have not been to Keldagrim for a long time’, he says. I ask him what he means by ‘we’— could there be more Imcando dwarves in hiding someplace?— but he claims it was a slip of the tongue and moves on to the details of the repair. All he will need, he tells me, is an iron bar. Okay, that’s very easy to procure. I tell Thurgo I’ll be right back and go back up to Falador to fetch one from the bank. Once I’ve got it, I return south using Remora’s pendant to save me a bit of time and hand the axe back to Thurgo, who fixes the corroded parts in very good time. Like he said, the damage wasn’t as extensive as it appeared. Thank you, Thurgo!

Okay, that’s one step closer toward the restoration of the statue… but getting the axe fixed was just one small item on the long list of tasks demanding my attention out here in the east. My next moves shall be to the north of Falador, where I’ll be hunting for Bob, catching a scorpion, and deliver the compromise meal to Mudknuckles at the goblin village so that maybe, just maybe, I can free the Goblin Generals from the culinaromancer’s time snarl.

I find Bob by the moat of Falador Castle, thanks to the enchantment on the amulet, but he’s not too communicative. He tells me he’d like to speak with another cat, and asks why I keep Minou in the care of the Bank of Gielinor. This leads to a rather odd discussion in which Bb tries to convince me that cats are easily as hardy as sheep, and, indeed, were the second species brought over to Gielinor by Guthix. That’s not what we were taught in school (what about the dwarves and gnomes?), but who knows? Maybe cats really do have some insight there.

Anyway, I go to the bank once more and get Minou to come meet Bob with me. This time, I let Minou explain the problem: while Bob has been wandering the world, Unferth has been missing him! It turns out he hasn’t been home because he’s madly in love with a cat named Neite, all the way in Sophanem. The problem is that Neite, while she has feelings for him, refuses to get into a relationship with a cat of no status. Minou, ever practical, asks whether he knows who his parents were, but he doesn’t: he was abandoned at a young age and left on Gertrude’s doorstep, over by Varrock. In his earliest memories, it’s Gertrude who’s caring for him. Minou comes up with the idea of visiting Gertrude and asking her what she knows about Bob’s origins. As much as I’m not happy about playing matchmaker between two cats living almost a continent’s length away from each other, I guess I am kind of committed at this point, and might as well, seeing as Gertrude doesn’t live that far out of the way from the Grand Exchange, after all.

First things first, though: I need to deliver the rather unpalatable melange of ingredients I’ve collected to the Goblin Village kitchen. The place, it turns out, is still in as bad a shape as it was when the cauldron exploded, but it seems that Mudknuckles likes it that way: he keeps collecting new ‘data’ and ‘results’ from the walls and ceiling, and fantasising about new culinary experiments. I hand him the ingredients, which he beats into a sort of grey pulpy mush and hands to me, with the disclaimer that he can’t vouch for the idea working because the instructions from the generals made no sense. (Even my choice of ingredients doesn’t reassure him.) Well, I guess it’s better than nothing, right? I’ll give it a go when next I’m in Lumbridge, and if it doesn’t work, I’ll see if I can’t think of something else.

Okay, next up: catching scorpions. The seer back at Seers’ Village claims to have seen them both nearby, one at the monastery and one in a shop in Gunnarsgrunn. I have my scorpion cage with me, and grab a holy symbol so I’ll be let into the monastery, which I make my first stop. Once there, I first look around for the scorpion in the public areas, then, not finding it there, try to head up into the monks’ quarters. As I try to climb the stairs, a monks stops me and tells me the obvious: that this area of the monastery is for monks only. So I ask him if I can join the order, and to my surprise, he inducts me on the spot! All I had to do was ask! It seems that word of my exploits (the re-purification of the Salve, perhaps?) has spread further than I was expecting!

With the monk’s blessing, I head up to the private quarters, where I find a robe laid out for me. More excitingly, I hear the scorpion skittering around! Deftly, I track it down and trap it in my cage without having the other one run off, as well. That leaves just one more, which I think I can get presently! Before I leave, I pull over a monk to bless for some holy symbols that I brought for this purpose. He does so, infusing the energies of Saradomin into them and thereby transforming them from moulded silver stars into talismans with the power to ward off evil! Now, of course, I can sell them for a bit of profit.

There’s still plenty of daylight left, so: on to the next scorpion, this one in Gunnarsgrunn. Or so the seer said: unfortunately, the delay between my talking to him and my arrival at the barbarians’ village proves, this time, to be telling. Peksa, the owner of the helmet shop, admits to having had the scorpion in his possession when I ask him about it. Unfortunately, he no longer does: he gave it away to his brother Iwor, who lives all the way out in the outpost by Baxtorian Falls. (And by ‘gave it away’, he means ‘left it in his room so it would sting him’.) Well, that’s disappointing, but I’ll keep an eye out for it the next time I’m there, assuming Iwor doesn’t squish it first!

But that’s a task for the future. For now, given how close I am to Varrock, I’ve got other things on my mind: first of all, trading at the Grand Exchange, and then seeing what Gertrude knows about Bob. And so, after consigning my pile of accumulated loot to a broker, I visit Gertrude for a spot of late-afternoon tea and a chat about cats. Gertrude is pleased to see me— and Minou— looking happy and healthy. Gertrude is happy to talk, as long as it’s not about death runes— she’s been hearing terrible rumours, and…

I assure her that it’s not about that, and that I came to her because of a cat she adopted some time ago. Gertrude remembers Bob, but tells me she doesn’t know anything about his parentage: he was left on her doorstep by some locals, and she took care of him until he could take care of himself. At some point, Minou loses patience with Gertrude’s anecdotes about Bob and yowls at me to demand Gertrude tell me what she knows. (It’s quite a scene: I threaten Minou with amputation, Minou threatens me with a clawing, and I’m basically forced to get to the point.) Gertrude’s memory still isn’t jogged, but Minou has an idea: is there a chance that Bob has some connection to the legend of Robert the Strong? I must confess I’ve never heard that legend, so I ask Gertrude if she can tell it. Much to Minou’s disdain, though, she doesn’t know it either, and suggests that I go speak to Reldo: if there’s anyone who knows it, it’ll be him. Good idea!

Before I go, Gertrude tells me there’s something else I should know— some people I should meet are in town. They’re rat catchers, she says, and they live in the sewers: she knows this because she had to drag her two eldest sons out of there recently. (Yuck!) Well, it’s another not-half-bad idea, since I’m already here. But first, I return to the Exchange and begin to go down my long shopping list, purchasing a new talisman for runecrafting, this one imbued with cosmic energy, an adamantite hatchet to help me chop down trees more efficiently, and, perhaps most excitingly, a mithril, crossbow-fired grappling hook. with which I might just be able to create paths for myself in areas where there are none, like over walls and stuff! Should be fun to try it out.

The last thing I do before nightfall is visit Reldo at the Varrock Palace library and ask him about Robert the Strong. This is a figure Reldo is familiar with from some old histories of the Fourth Age, but he has to look it up: he doesn’t know the details off-hand. In the books, it seems that Robert is known as a hero of Misthalin, taller than the tallest man and stronger than the strongest warrior. He is said to carry a six-foot longbow and have as his pet a panther named Odysseus, and to be involved in a crusade against the dragonkin. The book explains what these are: a race of tall, avian, immortal humanoids, who do not use their wings and cannot reproduce. Because of their lack of breeding capacity, they shunned other races, and created debased versions of themselves to protect them: the creatures we now know as dragons. Now, the information on this subject is old and unreliable, but Reldo believes there is a grain of truth in such folk-tales, waiting to be discovered.

Okay, that’s nice and all, I tell Minou, but how does that help us? Minou seems to think, on the basis of the flimsiest of evidence (no one seems to know where Bob came from, based on the grand total of one person we’ve asked), that Bob may actually be Robert the Strong. Um, what? That’s so illogical as to beggar belief, but… Minou’s been right about things before, and when next I cross paths with Bob, I suppose I’ll ask him about it. Most likely, he’ll agree that it’s a ridiculous theory and we’ll be back to square one.

Anyway, it will be nice to see Dororan and Gudrun again and sleep in a proper bed, and I can worry about this and everything else tomorrow.

#runescape #journal #roleplay #holygrail #robertthestrong

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