Connor: The Tale of Sir Robin of Loxley

         The Tale of Sir Robin of Loxley

   By Connor M. Jones

It was an average day at first.  I, a rich noble, had enjoyed sitting around in my estate.  As was my job, I taxed the villagers of Loxley.  It was the late 12th century and the king was going on crusade.  My family had been friends with the royal family for centuries.  As such it was assumed that princess Maid Marian and I would fall in love.  My name was Robin and this is my tale.
           I had gotten permission from King Richard to hunt the royal deer.  When I did so, however, I was set upon by the sheriff's men.  The scoundrels said that I had no business in Sherwood forest hunting the king's deer.  Later I got John, the king's younger brother, to help me out of this mess.  John was a nice person, even if he did believe that he and Richard were above the law.
         When I got home I saw that the villagers, whom I'd often donated small amounts of my own money, were starving from all the taxes.  John, whom Richard left in charge, had been taxing my people and much of England.  As for who collected those taxes in the king's name, it was the Sheriff of Nottingham.  At this point I had had it with that sheriff and left the village with a good sum of gold.  I took my best green garment, a hat with a yellow feather, a bow, and with these belongings I ran off into Sherwood Forest.  I went about in multiple disguises giving out money to the poor of England, and when my gold dwindled I stole from John.  Soon there was a price on my head and the posters called me Robin Hood, after that the name stuck.
                    Eventually I heard that the sheriff was in charge of keeping a watchful eye over Maid Marian, I also heard that the same sheriff locked her away in a tower.  As I was alone at the time I couldn't quite pull off a jailbreak.  I also heard that a knight by name of Sir Guy of Gisborn was hired to find and kill me, but I was sneaky and cunning.  Fortunately Marian had been trained in swordplay by her father, Unfortunately the sheriff was no doubt keeping her away from swords.  Soon enough I had my band of merry men including John Little, whose name was often made fun of by friend and foe.
         My band of about a thousand men and I moved toward the castle where Marian was being held.  We carried swords, maces, bows, arrows, and other such weapons.  We traveled for a while before we ran into Sir Guy, who then challenged me to a sword fight.  Being a gentleman I had to agree to duel him, even though he decided to duel to the death.  The duel began he swung the sword at me and I parried, next I swung at him and he blocked it with his shield.  The battle continued in this manner, until his shield was wrenched from his hand.  We continued to swing and parry until I managed, with a lucky strike I might add, to decapitate the poor fellow.  Twas his fault, for he should have known not to challenge me to such a duel.  I am just as good with a sword as I am with a bow and arrow.
       Upon reaching the castle, we subdued the guards and proceeded to tie a rope to an arrow and shoot the arrow at the piece of wood under the window.  After that I tugged the rope to make sure it was secure and went about climbing.  Eventually I got to the room, but in front of me was the obese sheriff himself.  We had a quick little duel and soon he was running away in fear, or to get something more effective.  I got to Maid Marian, who was already turning a leg of a chair into a sharp stick.  Until she realized that I had come to get her out she held the stake to my throat.  Soon, after she put the stick away, we were running to get out.  I sent Marian down the rope first and as she climbed I found myself face to face with the sheriff.
        Again I fought the sheriff, only this time I had been wounded, he brought the sword down and gave me a large gash on my arm.  Fortunately it was not the arm I use to handle a sword and thus again I sent him running off to John.  Soon enough I saw John walk in wearing an elegant robe and the crown.  He looked at me and, like Marian, recognized me quickly the prince drew a broadsword and went crazy trying to murder me.  I did the one thing I could possibly do, I ran and jumped out the window.  Seeing as I gave Marian enough time to reach the ground in the gigantic pink dress she was wearing, I had no trouble falling out the window.  Fortunately I was caught by Maid Marian and we all escaped back to Sherwood Forest.  Once there, my wounds were tended to, Alan-a-Dale sang of our heroic escapades, and I married Maid Marian, who insisted that we move back to my small castle in Loxley.  Years later when King Richard returned he pardoned me for my crimes against the crown and the murder of Sir Guy.  A few years later, the rightful king we had waited for years to return passed away and John was once again on the throne.  At least now things wouldn't be as bad, or so it seemed.

Marney: Swimming

I have been on the longhorn aquatics swimming at Galloway Hammond for a while now and I wanted to tell you guys about what I have been doing in swim lately.  I missed a whole week a week ago because I was sick but now I am better and started going back.  I am very happy because I have a swim meet coming up and I had one a few weeks ago but it was not that exiting because there were not as much people. But now I am going to have more people there because it is a whole school.  Last practice I had to swim though hula hoops we put the hula hoops in the water and had to swim passed them without touching them I liked that the most because It was new for me and I wanted to do something new and not keep doing the same thing every day I go to swim.  But then i had to swim 16 laps of butterfly and them I kicked 12 laps of freestyle and then I swam 19 laps of backstroke then class was over and i had a great time I hope That we keep doing cool things like that in swim and I really want to do butterfly to get even better with them. 

Connor: Weekly Blog #1

The French Vampire's Convention

By Connor M. Jones

                       With the comic con in town the streets of Austin were in chaos.  Doctors, daleks, Batmen, and Spidermen roamed the streets.  I was the only one not dressed as a fictional being.  My red eyes and elongated canines shone splendidly.  I was a vampire, I came to the country in life as a man named Rene Robert Cavelier.  I was French, but over the centuries I learned to speak fluent English, however I still had a French accent.  I watched as new people entered my city and ran rampant.  I had taken up living or un-living in the Austin museum of art.
       One night I flew from my hideout to the area of the comic con.  There I saw two women dressed as Thor and Loki respectively, from Marvel comics.  I swooped in from the ceiling and bit one of them, draining little blood, but gaining enough to keep me in this undead state.  Once my vampiric Thor awoke she was attacked by the con's security.  In this day and age everyone thinks that sunlight is a sure fire way to kill our kind, so the guards tied her up outside and waited for the sun to come up.  In the morning I traveled about among the nerds and geeks.  I stood next to yet another Thor and, on the opposite side, a Doctor/ time lord.  Neither of my two walking companions knew what or who I was.  Once I found a dark secluded area I hid, waiting for my chance at more blood or another minion.
         I had gotten lucky as my Thor minion had returned from her brush with the guards.  We exchanged a few words of French and separated.  I went left and she went right, unfortunately I ran into a group of Live Action Roleplayers.  Apparently they were playing a game called Vampire: The Masquerade and were unaware that I was a true vampire.  I quickly ran and then flew away from the mortals, one of whom kept trying to hand me pizza.  Soon I was away and could plot the end of all life in this convention.  I lifted from my pocket a vial with two words: Red Death.  I soon had on a crimson mask as well and was walking about the con giving little breaths of the disease to all I passed.
         My victims coughed up the precious liquid from their lungs.  A perfect way to get something to drink.  Soon I had infected the half the con and anyone who didn't get it was turned into a vampire.  My kind and I thrived and we would have kept thriving.  Unfortunately the humans got smart and hired expert vampire hunters after the red death had passed.  My Thor minion was the first to feel a stake, followed by the woman in the Loki costume.  I was the last to meet a gruesome end, the mortals seized me and tied me to a pyre.  As the sun came up they lit the wood on fire and backed away as the building I used for cover crumbled and decapitated me.  I died for the last time of fire and decapitation, a terrible way for a blood sucking monster like me to go.  However I swore my revenge, no matter how pointless a gesture it was.

Avery Jones: Weekly Blog

One day I decided to go to Comic Con. I was dressed as my favorite super hero, Batman. I had the whole outfit (cape, tights, mask, etc.).  As I walked around I kept seeing these girls. They were dressed as Thor and Loki. They had amazing costumes and they looked amazing in the costumes. But there was this weird thing about them. They loved to pose for pictures. But not like pretty poses. They were just..... how do I explain this? They were..... awkward. Whenever someone wanted a picture of or with them they would stand there slouched over and have no expression on their faces. I thought it was strange so I asked why they did that.

       "It's the cool thing that's going around", they would say, "It's like fetch. These are the cool things going around lately."

       "But, no offence or anything, you guys just look a little bit awkward when you pose like that for the camera. Not a bit, really, you look very awkward in your pictures."

       "No we don't! We look fabulous! We practiced our poses for 3 hours straight! We know what we are doing and we know we look pretty darn good."

       They were very confident in their "posing", so I stopped and let them be. I watched them the rest of the day. Not to sound like a stalker or anything. I just wanted to see if they came up with anything new for their photos. Every now and then they would smile or put their hand on their hip, but that was about it. 

       But as I watched them I began to understand why they posed like this. When you think about it for a while and watch them for 2 hours straight then you understand the beauty of their poses. It was amazing. It was like the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life.

       I thought to myself, gosh, only if I could pose like that.

       I tried a few times to get the poses down . But nothing worked. Was I doing something wrong? After a bit of practice the girls noticed and came up to me. They showed me the correct way to position my back and how to get the right expression on my face. After 4 hours of help and hard practice I had it down. And I, Jeff Colman, then became a famous male model from that day on.

THE END

Blog of the Week: March 4, 2013

We're officially back to weekly blogging!  We've been off for a while, so I'm going easy on you.  Write a story about the following picture.  It can be as long or as short as you want.  Just make sure that the scene in the picture is included in your story.  Welcome back!