Hi Sky, I'm Phoenix. I guess our names kind of go together lol. I haven't had a great week school-wise, but it's been alright for writing. I like the weekly because it makes me focus on quantity not just quality. Obviously quality is important but the more you write the more you can improve. So I like that. I had a calculus test today, and I didn't do very good on it, but I'm not super stressed about it; I just have to study more. Right now, in between writing this letter I'm playing wordle and a bunch of games based on that. I'm also watching an archaeology video about unsettling sites. It's honestly nothing amazing, but it's good enough that I want to keep watching. I really love archaeology and can never pick a favorite time period, but I love any time we find out more about ancient people. I'd say I'm more fascinated the older it gets--- so fascinated in fact I almost wanted to be a paleontologist and either study ancient marine life or ancient human species. I'm still interested in them of course, and I learn a lot from Forrest Valkai and a fair amount from Gutsick Gibbon on youtube, and I think I'd reccomend them if you too like the paleontology of apes especially those closely related to humans. Isn't it always so much easier to learn about a subject when it's not a class you're taking? Aside from archaeology and paleontology, I've been trying to watch a lot more about plants. I really want to study plants but I've never taken a real botany course. Lately I've been learning about the history tied to a lot of plants, like poisons or expensive perfume plants and trade wars, or a disease in mulberry trees affecting the silk industry in France and the way the workers rose up. But my goal is to study the health of plants and their diseases. So I want to learn about soil, about plant immune systems, and maybe some of the symbiotic bonds they have. Because everything in nature is so connected, I'm not sure how I would be able to focus on just one thing. Before you ask, no I don't have a favorite plant. I want to see all around the world though, for the plants, the culture, the sights. At this time, I can't see myself picking any particular place I'd want to study plants, because I'd always be fascinated by 50 different places. Of the coast of Yemen is an island called Socotra and it is fascinating; it looks so alien. I'd also love to study plants in the Arctic, or in some of my local USA deserts. But at the same time the idea of travelling that far scares me. So I'd probably stick local. Plus I'd probably get the most work with farms, but I'd love to work with Forestry groups. There are so many invasive plants and invasive insects and everything is going wrong with the ecosystem. I'd like to do something, and I'd like to learn about fascinating plants while I do. I have a book about plants called the light eaters, my professor gave it to me ages ago and I still haven't read it. Right now I'm reading The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez. It's really interesting I'm not even sure how to describe it. In part of it you are being told a story by your grandmother while the radio tells news of a war, in another part you are in a dream and in that dream you are in a theater and they are performing to most amazing play and you are among other dreamers and ghosts, and in the last part it's the story that the play is portraying. About an emperor and his three sons and their goddess mother who is trying to escape their imprisonment. There's a plot to k*ll the emperor's son, an outcast young soldier, magical tortoises, and it's LGBTQ+ which always makes me a tad bit more likely to pick up a book. It's also based on some Filipino mythology, but I know the Philippines isn't monocultural and I'm not sure where exactly he drew his inspiration from. The study of mythology is so interesting to me, because you can't be as sure of it as you are about math. You also have to think about what got written down and who was writing them. It's really cool when we find ancient prayers preserved, but of course there are so many languages that are no longer spoken or weren't written down at the time. Part of my ancestry is Polish and I'm interested in learning about that. I never really inherited much of the culture though aside from a last name that always makes people pause. I have some idea where exactly in Poland we came from, but I'm not even 95% sure. But, even though I don't know exactly who my ancestors were, it's really cool how much animism was tied into their ancient customs. I've always felt a bit drawn to animism, but know there's a line when it comes to antropromorphizing nature. I'll wrap this up telling you about an art project I'm planning on. It will be a mix of collage and drawing. It will feature a scene of early spring with still some ice, but also flowers. These flowers will be my attempt at Wycinanki, which is a Polish paper cutting art. In the middle it's going to be Persephone and Demeter. -Phoenix
