text:
[bizarre-japanese-helms-kawarikabuto-001]

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The bizarre taste in helmets of Japanese samurai, generals and warlords would put any modern cosplayer to shame, and sengoku jidai buffs have been busily collecting up some of the most egregiously eccentric examples.

The classic Japanese helmet (“kabuto”) came into being during the Heian period, and became an essential martial accessory during the Sengoku Jidai period.

However, with feudal daimyo increasingly more interested in advertising their presence on the battlefield than participating directly in combat they began to take on less practical designs, eventually becoming the subject of the daimyo equivalent of creepy otaku collectors.

All this culminated in the “kawarikabuto,” or “strange helmet,” some of the finest surviving examples of which are presented below.

[bizarre-japanese-helms-kawarikabuto-001]

The helm of Gamō Ujisato, the Christian lord of Mutsu province and overlord of Obama castle – the helm atop his ebon armour is supposed to resemble the terrifying tail of a catfish, although modern Japanese cannot help but describe him as “lastboss class evil overlord”:

The zombie armour of Katō Kiyomasa, daimyo of Azuchi-momoyama, conqueror of half of Korea and vanquisher of Chinese general Yang Hao – his armour is meant to look like a rotting corpse:

[bizarre-japanese-helms-kawarikabuto-002]
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The pointy helm of Mori Yoshinari, spear master lord of Mino province, who was mockingly called “19” (fingers and toes) because he managed to lose a finger in battle:

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Mori Nagayoshi, a daimyo vassal of clan Oda who was famously ill-tempered, perhaps because of this helmet:

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Barbarian quelling generalissimo Toyotomi Hideyoshi found carrying his war fan around the battlefield so much of a hassle he cheekily stashed it in his helmet – although given his military record it is hard to see his vast armies complaining:

[bizarre-japanese-helms-kawarikabuto-011]

His other helms are rather less practical:

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Tachibana Muneshige, a samurai elevated to provincial lord and renowned for his kindness, was so keen nobody forget he was a big name (daimyo, “大名”, actually just means “big name”) that he had the character for “big” (大) incorporated in his helm:

[bizarre-japanese-helms-kawarikabuto-014]

He also had a stylish “○” helm which will be familiar to Koei fans:

[bizarre-japanese-helms-kawarikabuto-015]

Mori Ranmaru, the page (and hot teenage boy lover) of Oda Nobunaga, is legendary for cutting his belly in the honourable fashion after his master was forced to kill himself by a particularly treacherous general, actually had the entire “Namu-Amida-Butsu” Buddhist prayer worked into this rather showy helm:

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Akechi Mitsuharu, a cousin of the aforementioned general, who famously gutted himself and then wrote a poem on a nearby door in his own blood after fleeing a military defeat (after helping out his dead lord by killing his wife and children), had this rather fetching set of bunny ears on his headgear:

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Mercifully, the owner of this hare-emblazoned helm is not known:

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No less than Uesugi Kenshin had this masterpiece (the moon and hare are intimately associated in Japanese mythology, explaining why rabbits were acceptable motifs to feudal warlords):

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Another one of his memorable helms:

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The fearsome nekomimi helm of Matsudaira Nobukazu, a Tokugawa daimyo, although it was actually modelled on the tufts of a horned owl:

[bizarre-japanese-helms-kawarikabuto-025]

Matsudaira Chikatada, a Tokugawa ancestor, had a furry helmet – although it certainly would make the wearer look like an ass, it was probably intended to resemble a deer:

[bizarre-japanese-helms-kawarikabuto-026]

Tōdō Takatora, a lowly ashigaru made good (rising up the ranks to become Toyotomi’s fleet admiral during the invasion of Korea and ending up as a feudal lord reporting to Tokugawa Ieyasu himself), had this preposterous helm made – said to be based on the head-wear of a Tang dynasty mandarin:

[bizarre-japanese-helms-kawarikabuto-027]

Yamauchi Toyomasa, an Edo period lord and master of the sword who bankrupted his province by squandering its wealth on Noh and feasting, never actually had a chance to test his skills in real battle, so his cute lop-eared bunny helm is perhaps appropriate:

[bizarre-japanese-helms-kawarikabuto-028]

A variation on the bunny helm – wave-rabbit:

[bizarre-japanese-helms-kawarikabuto-029]

Kuroda Nagamasa, a Tokugawa vassal whose second claim to fame was the notorious ugliness and imbecility of his son and heir, had this understated helm as his first:

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His other famous helmet:

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The owner of this intimidating helm evidently considered crabs the most intimidating sight he could present his foes with on the battlefield:

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This one went one step further and chose a scallop:

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A shrimp:

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Turbo cornutus, the turban shell sea snail, is an obvious choice for a helmet:

[bizarre-japanese-helms-kawarikabuto-036]

Apostate daimyo Kuroda Yoshitaka, or Don Simeon to give him his soon abandoned Christian name, was a military strategist under Toyotomi, although why he chose to wear a bowl on his head is not clear:

[bizarre-japanese-helms-kawarikabuto-037]

The owner of this helm chose a vajra gripped in a fist for his kabuto, perhaps hoping some of its divine powers would be transferred to him on the field:

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The owner of this piece seems to have anticipated western fashion by several centuries:

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Fortunately Disney was not around to sue this general:

[bizarre-japanese-helms-kawarikabuto-040]

Date Shigezane, a northern general of some renown, chose a hairy caterpillar as his ornament as “they never take a step back”:

[bizarre-japanese-helms-kawarikabuto-041]

question: What is the main topic of this document?

answer: The bizarre taste in helmets of Japanese samurai, generals, and warlords

question: Who is Gamo Ujisato?

answer: He was the Christian lord of Mutsu province and overlord of Obama castle. Modern Japanese describe him as "lastboss class evil overlord".

question: What people are described in this document?

answer: Gamo Ujisato, Kato Kiyomasa, Mori Yoshinari, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tachibana Muneshige, Mori Ranmaru, Akechi Mitsuharu, Uesugi Kenshen, Matsudaira Nobukazu, Matsudaira Chikatada, Tōdō Takatora, Yamauchi Toyomasa, Kuroda Nagamasa,  Kuroda Yoshitaka, and Date Shigezane

question: Whose other helms are less practical?

answer: Toyotomi Hideyoshi

question: Why is the taste in helmets of Japanese samurai, generals, and warlords described as bizarre?

answer: The helmets or armour range from looking like a rotting corpse to having bunny ears.

question: Describe the helmet of Uesugi Kenshin.

answer: His helmet had a moon and hare motif.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: The bizarre taste in helmets of Japanese samurai, generals, and warlords is described in this document.


split: train

text:
PICHAIKARANPALLAM CANAL is a canal that runs in Erode, Tamil Nadu. It is one of the tributary to River Kaveri. The canal gets sourced by the rain water through rivulets and the seepage water from LBP Canal near Nasiyanur, which further flows into Ellapalayam Tank. The canal runs a length of through Ellapalayam, Villarasampatti, Periyasemur, BP Agraharam and passes under the Kalingarayan Canal with the help of an Aqueduct to reach River Kaveri.[1]

Environmental issues

Due to the high industrialization in Erode, a vast number of textile dyeing units and leather processing units came up in the surroundings. Most of these units discharge their untreated effluents into this canal leading to high pollution, causing several health issues to the public.[2][3] This issue have seen several protests since it heavily damages the underground water potential and agriculture in this area.[4] Along with several social welfare organisations, Erode Municipal Corporation has done a cleaning program to dredge this canal.[5] In 2001, the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board constructed a Sewage treatment plant to treat the contaminated water of this canal before entering River Kaveri. This plant with a capacity to treat 5.7 million litres of water/day, is located near Vairapalayam in the Veerappanchatram Zone.[6] Also, the Erode Municipal Corporation has appointed a consultancy to prepare a Detailed Project Report for the redevelopment of this Canal.[7]

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title: Pichaikaranpallam Canal

question: Where is Pichaikaranpallam Canal?

answer: Erode, Tamil Nadu.

question: What river is it a tributary of?

answer: The River Kaveri.

question: Where is the source of water for the canal?

answer: Seepage water from LBP Canal near Nasiyanur.

question: Where does LBP canal flow into?

answer: Ellapalayam Tank.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: This article is about a canal in Tamil Nadu, detailing the water works it flows into and the history of its construction.


text:
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At executive levels, we are fond of developing new strategies and priorities for the business.  We spend countless hours in developing strategies to change our business, to drive growth, to expand into new segments, to change the value we create for our customers, becoming much more important to them.

At some point we start rolling out our strategies—we talk to analysts, proudly talking about the new strategies/directions and how they will drive growth.  We reposition ourselves in the markets through a variety of communications within the markets, to our customers, and others in the ecosystem.  We develop change initiatives, new metrics/goals, new focus areas and cascade them down into the organization.

Having done our jobs of developing the new strategies and priorities, communicating them, setting expectations both internally and externally, we sit back to track the success in implementation–hopefully going back to analysts and the markets declaring victory.

Except too often, it doesn’t happen, at least the way we had hoped for.

Too often there is a huge gap between our strategies/goals and execution.

We launch a major new product, but it fails to achieve its goals because we’re marketing and selling what we have always done.

We want to enter a new market, but we are marketing and selling to our traditional markets.

We introduce new systems, tools, processes, but people continue doing what they have always done.

We provide training, our sales people are enthusiastic in the training sessions, but when it is over, they go back to their jobs, doing what they have always done.

We reorganize/restructure, but fail to achieve what we wanted because people on the front lines don’t understand what they should be doing differently and why.

What the top executives in the corporation think and want people to be doing is different than what people are actually doing, but top executives are blind to this.

One of the biggest challenges sales managers, at all levels, have is connecting the dots.  Connecting the dots between what we want to be and do and what we currently execute.

Managers have to first connect the dots for themselves, What do the changes means in terms of what they do every day?  What must they stop doing?  What must they begin doing?  What must they modify and change?  What new behaviors are required? What new skills/capabilities must they learn/develop?  How do they measure/track their own progress in this process?

Next, managers have to connect the dots for their people, What do the changes mean in terms of what their people must do every day?  What must they stop doing, what must the begin doing, what must they modify and change, what new behaviors are required?  What new skills/capabilities must they learn and develop?  How do they measure and track performance?  How do they coach and reinforce what’s important in this process?

The sequence of how we connect the dots is important.  Too often, managers tell their people what must be changed, what’s new, what’s different–yet fail to recognize or change themselves.  Consequently, they fail in modeling the attitudes, behaviors, and work that is critical to driving change in the organization.

Change is always difficult, people, at all levels, struggle to break habits, to understand what must be done, why, and how.  It’s managements’ job to connect the dots–first for themselves, then for their people.

 [Book Cover]FOR A FREE PEEK AT SALES MANAGER SURVIVAL GUIDE, CLICK THE PICTURE OR LINK.  YOU’LL GET THE TABLE OF CONTENTS, FOREWORD, AND 2 FREE CHAPTERS.  FREE SAMPLE

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question: What does the text say about change?

answer: The text says that change is always difficult and that people at all levels struggle to break habits and understand what must be done. Managers have to be able to tell their people what must be changed, and have to recognize that they need to change themselves as well.

question: What does the text say about there being a huge gap between strategies and goals and execution?

answer: The text states that there is too often a huge gap between strategies and goals and execution. Goals often tend to not meet if the same strategies of marketing and selling are implied. People cannot do what they have always done if they wish to reach their goals and new successes.

question: Would managers agree with the content of this text?


text:
[François-Auguste Mignet] FRANÇOIS AUGUSTE MARIE MIGNET (8 May 1796 – 24 March 1884) was a French journalist and historian of the French Revolution.

Biography

He was born in Aix-en-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône), France. His father was a locksmith from the Vendée, who enthusiastically accepted the principles of the French Revolution and encouraged liberal ideas in his son. François had brilliant success at Avignon in the lycée where he became a teacher in 1815. He returned to Aix to study law, and in 1818 was called to the bar, where his eloquence would have ensured his success had he not been more interested in the study of history. His abilities were shown in an _Éloge de Charles VII_, which was honoured by the Académie de Nîmes in 1820, and a memoire on _Les Institutions de Saint Louis_, which in 1821 was honoured by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres. [_Histoire de la Révolution française depuis 1789 jusqu'en 1814_, Italian translation, 1825.]

He then went to Paris, where he was soon joined by his friend and compatriot Adolphe Thiers, the future president of the French Republic. He was introduced by Jacques-Antoine Manuel, formerly a member of the Convention, to the Liberal paper, _Le Courrier français_, where he became a member of the staff which carried on a fierce pen-and-ink warfare against the Restoration. He acquired his knowledge of the men and intrigues of the Napoleonic epoch from Talleyrand.

Mignet's _Histoire de la révolution française_ (1824), in support of the Liberal cause, was an enlarged sketch, prepared in four months, in which more stress was laid on fundamental theories than on the facts. In 1830, he founded _Le National_ with Thiers and Armand Carrel, and signed the journalists' protest against the July Ordinances, however, he refused to profit from his party's victory. He was satisfied with the modest position of Director of the Archives at the Foreign Office, where he stayed till the revolution of 1848, when he was dismissed, and retired permanently into private life. He had been elected a member of the _Académie des sciences morales et politiques_, which was re-established in 1832, and, in 1837, was made the permanent secretary. He was elected a member of the _Académie française_ in 1836, and sought no further honours.

Mignet was well known in fashionable circles where his witty conversation and pleasant manners made him a favourite. Most of his time was devoted to study and to his academic duties. Eulogies on his deceased fellow-members, the Academy reports on its work, and on the prizes awarded by it, which it was part of Mignet's duty as secretary to draw up, were thoroughly appreciated by connoisseurs, and were collected in Mignet's _Notices et portraits_.

He worked slowly and lingered over research. With the exception of his description of the French Revolution, which was chiefly a political manifesto, all his early works refer to the Middle Ages. He and historian Francois Guizot invented the concept of the bourgeois revolution.[1] These include, _De la féodalité, des institutions de Saint Louis et de l'influence de la législation de ce prince_ (1822); _La Germanie au VIIIe et au IXe siècle, sa conversion au Christianisme, et son introduction dans la société civilisée de l'Europe occidentale_ (1834); _Essai sur la formation territoriale et politique de la France depuis la fin du XIe siècle jusqu'à la fin du XVe_ (1836); all of which are rough sketches that mainly outline the subjects.

Mignet's most famous works are devoted to modern history. For many years, he immersed himself into history of the Reformation, but only one part of his writings, dealing with the Reformation at Geneva, was published. His _Histoire de Marie Stuart_ (2 vols., 1851) made use of previously unpublished documents from the archives of Simancas. He devoted several volumes to a history of Spain, which had a well-deserved success, including, _Charles Quint, son abdication, son séjour et sa mort au monastère de Yuste_ (1845); _Antonio Perez et Philippe II._ (1845); and _Histoire de la rivalité de François Ier et de Charles Quint_ (1875).

At the same time, he was commissioned to publish the diplomatic acts relating to the War of the Spanish Succession for the _Collection des documents inédits_. Only four volumes of these _Négotiations_ were published (1835–1842), and they do not go further than the Peace of Nijmwegen; however, the introduction is celebrated, and Mignet reprinted it in his _Mélanges historiques_.

Mignet was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1876.[2] He died in Paris at age 87.

[1]

[2]

title: François Mignet

question: Francois' father encouraged liberal ideas in his son. What can be considered as an influence of this in Francios' life?

answer: The most notable of Mignet's actions that can be attributed as an influence of his father is in Mignet's involvement with the Le Courier francais, and his creation of the Histoire de la revolution francaise.


text:
RAGHAVANKA () was a noted Kannada writer and a poet in the Hoysala court who flourished in the late 12th to early 13th century. Raghavanka is credited for popularizing the use of the native _shatpadi_ metre (hexa metre, 6 line verse) in Kannada literature.[1] _Harishchandra Kavya_, in _shatpadi_ metre, is known to have been written with an interpretation unlike any other on the life of King Harishchandra is well known and is considered one of the important classics of Kannada language. He was a nephew and protégé of the noted Early 12-century Kannada poet Harihara.[2][3] Although the _shatpadi_ metre tradition existed in Kannada literature prior to Raghavanka, Raghavanka inspired the usage of the flexible metre for generations of poets, both Shaiva (devotees of God Shiva) and Vaishnava (devotees of God Vishnu) to come.[4]

Epic Writings

-   _Harishchandra Kavya_
-   _Siddharama charitra_
-   _Somanatha charitra_
-   _Viresvara charita_
-   _Hariharamahatva_
-   _Sarabha charitra_

Although _Harishchandra Kavya_ (c. 1200 or c. 1225) is Raghavanka's _magnum opus_, it was rejected by his guru, poet Harihara (or Harisvara). In some ways, Raghavanka's writing surpasses his guru's talent, especially in describing characters in his story.[5] Legend has it that his guru was aghast at Raghavanka Pandita, a devotee of Hindu God Shiva, for writing about ordinary mortals (such as King Harishchandra) instead of writing about Veerashaiva saints. According to the same legend, five of Raghavanka's teeth “fell off instantly” for going against his guru's wishes. In order to expiate his sin, he authored five writings eulogising Veerashaiva saints, one writing for each fallen tooth, and the teeth “returned one by one”.[6] According to another source, Raghavanka's guru physically abused him, punishing him for wasting his poetic talent in eulogising a mere mortal.[7] These five writings are the _Siddharama charitra_ (or _Siddharama Purana_), a eulogy of the dynamic and compassionate 12th century Veerashiava saint Siddharama of Sonnalige which brings out a larger-than-life image of the saint in a simple yet stylistic narrative;[8] the _Somanatha charitra_, a propagandist work which describes the life of saint Somayya (or Adaiah) of Puligere, his humiliation after being lured by the charms of a Jain girl, and his achievement of successfully converting a Jain temple into a Shiva temple; the _Viresvara charita_, a dramatic story of the blind wrath of a Shaiva warrior Virabhadra; the _Hariharamahatva_, a eulogy of Harisvara of Hampi, and _Sarabha charitra_, the last two works now considered lost.[9][10]

Magnum opus

In the _Harishchandra Kavya_, Raghavanka brings out the clash of personalities with lively dialogues; between sage Vishvamitra and sage Vashishta, between Harishchandra and Vishvamitra and between Harishchandra and the “unreal” girls (“dancing girls”). Also narrated is Harishchandra's fidelity to truth against all odds and the redemption of Harishchandra after being rescued by an untouchable he had once rejected.[11] According to professor L. S. Sheshagiri Rao of the Sahitya Akademi, in no other language has the story of King Harishchandra been dealt with this interpretation. The writing is original both in tradition and inspiration fully utilizing the potential of the _shatpadi_ metre.[12] One piece of elegiac verse, written in the _mandanila ragele_ metre (rhymed couplets) is the mourning of Chandramati over the death of her young son Lohitashva from snake bite, while gathering firewood for his Brahmin taskmaster.[13] The poem has remained popular for centuries and is recited by _Gamakis_ (narration of story accompanied by music).[14]

Notes

[1] Sastri (1955), p. 362

[2] Narasimhacharya (1988), p. 20

[3] Kamath (2001), p. 134

[4] Shiva Prakash in K. Ayyappapanicker (1997), p. 208

[5]

[6] Shiva Prakash (1997), p. 206

[7] Nagaraj in Pollock (2003), p. 364

[8]

[9]

[10] Shiva Prakash (1997), p. 207

[11]

[12] Rao in Datta, Sahitya Akademi (1988), pp. 1181

[13] Sahitya Akademi (1988), p. 1149

[14]

title: Raghavanka

question: What does the text say about Raghavanka's magnum opus?

answer: Raghavanka's magnum opus was Harishchandra Kavya. The work was rejected by Raghavanka's guru, poet Harihara. In the Harishchandra Kavya, Raghavanka shows the clash of personalities between the sages Vishvamitra and Vashishta, between Harishchandra and Vishvamitra, and between Harishchandra and the "unreal" girls. He also shows Harishchandra's fidelity to truth against all odds and his redemption. The writing is original both in tradition and inspiration fully utilizing the potential of the shatpadi meter. One part of the work, written in mandanila ragele meter (rhymed couplets), has remained popular for centuries and is recited by Gamakis.


text:
-1-The Beginning

	It goes without saying that there has always been a rift between two food groups us humans eat, fruits and vegetables. As humans we have always just assumed that the rift would never escalade to the point where these food groups would develop so much anger that they begin a war. There had been an almost war earlier in time that almost destroyed an entire country, named by humans as the Potato Famine. In the fruit and vegetable world it goes by another name, the Slaughter of the Many Potatoes. Attributed to other variables, we overlooked what was right in front of us. Fruits had become upset with sharing the limelight with vegetables and decided to strike. Send a message. So they slaughtered many potatoes. There was nothing left but mashed mess. The vegetables and potatoes especially were not prepared for this surprise attack as it was a peacetime between the food groups. It came out of nowhere and almost turned into the first world war between vegetables and the fruits. If not for one savior. Tomato Tom. Tomato Tom was the first Tomato picked during that season of the slaughter. Tomato Tom was a trained warrior but also a great delegate. He spoke two languages, that of the fruits and that of the vegetables. He was able to single handedly get the two sides to the table and agree to a settlement. The fruits would no longer slaughter the potatoes as long as the sides would be referred to as ‘Fruits and Vegetables’ and not ‘Vegetables and Fruits’. It seemed easy enough, and we forgot as time went on about the Slaughter of the Many Potatoes. Until one night, and attack on the grape community set the course for war….

2-The Attack

The community of grapes was a peaceful one among fruits. They were the brains behind establishing stems to get members of their community nutrients. They often stayed together and were very close. It was one night when they least expected it – a peacetime. A spider entered their community with one target. His purpose was to find the Great Loom Grape. The GLG was one grape of legendary status. In fact, he was a member of the Fruit of the Loom society and they were the original Fruits to sign the aforementioned No Slaughter Potato Treaty. Now as a human, you may be wondering why a spider is involved in this attack and why is the GLG his target. Spiders are known accomplices for the vegetables and natural enemies of humans. When approached with this opportunity from the vegetables to spark a war that could possibly end humanity’s ability to eat Fruits or Vegetables Post-War, the spider jumped at it.  And the target. Taking out the Great Loom Grape would nullify the peace treaty and send shock waves throughout the fruit world that would surely start the war.
The Assassin Spider, known simply as Ace, made it into the grape bowl with ease. Simply lowered himself with his web while they slept. He made his way over the stem to where the Great Loom Grape slept. He then laid many eggs of baby spiders inside the Great Loom Grape’s head. The spiders hatched instantly due to the change in climate, killing the Great Loom Grape instantly. Being hungry, the spiders then proceeded to eat all the other grapes. Leaving only a stem and cobwebs behind.

3-War Begins

It wasn’t until the morning that Ben the Banana noticed that all the grapes were just dead as fuck. He yelled to the Protector Apples who proceeded to tell the King Watermelon. Within three minutes, war preparations were being made. King Watermelon himself would led his fruit troops into battle. Meanwhile, the vegetables were more than prepared. The element of surprise was sure to be to their advantage. Their king, Tomato Tom the Fifth…
Tomato Tom the Fifth was tired of hearing all the damn stories of his super great ancestor who stopped war. This Tom was amped after a night with a jello shot and decided he had the greatness in him to betray his family and its legacy. He realized only a fruit-vegetable hybrid could truly decide the outcome of the war. He just needed to start it. It was too easy. He had his troops ready and headed into battle.

4- Death A Common Ground

The war was quick, deadly and magnificent. The common fruits and vegetables were the first to go. The apples and oranges were met by the potatoes and celery. One apple with a family of seeds to feed was ravaged by a group of potatoes. And two pieces of celery were cut in half by a rolling orange. Henery the Orange was cut down by Tomato Tom. All that was left was a pool of orange juice..with pulp..
Eventually all that was left was Tomato Tom and King Watermelon. A final showdown ensued. But of course after witty banter. King Watermelon yelled to Tom to stop the madness. Tom replied that he got off on this kind of stuff. King Watermelon tried to reason with Tom, that his ancestor was doing the right thing – for everyone. Peace had allowed the fruits to flourish and Tom even slightly crazy and senile had realized that the vegetables had gotten the short end of the stick. He raised his little green thing on the top of a tomato to strike the King. Before Tom could lay a blow, the King simply rolled Tomato Tom over. Splashing Tomato Sauce all over. It was a mess and it was cleaned up a couple days later.

5- A fitting End

Seeing all the bloodshed as a human made me realize something. All my fruit and vegetables were old and rotten, except for the watermelon in my fridge. So I threw everything out except the watermelon. I cut that and ate it, because watermelon is good and I am in fact a black writer. And not to be racist but blacks can be writers too. You thought I was going to make a black and watermelon joke. But anyway, I went grocery shopping and got new food. No war. Also, this was my imagination. In no way, were any fruits or vegetables harmed, except ironically the watermelon who was the only survivor of the war. But I hope this tale helps you realize how much we depend on fruits and vegetables. Next time you see one, say thank you.

title: Battle of Fruits and Vegetables

question: Why was Tomato Tom so effective in bringing peace to fruits and vegetables?

answer: Tomato Tom was effective in talking both warring parties down because he was a warrior as well as a skilled diplomat. Also, he could speak two languages - fruits' and vegetables'.

question: Why did Tomato Tom the Fifth start another war?

answer: Tomato Tom the Fifth started another to prove he is greater than his ancestor who brokered peace between plant and vegetable many years back. He was also high on a jello shot which impaired his judgment. Finally, he believes that, as a fruit-vegetable hybrid, only he has the chance to influence that outcome of the war.


text:
“Hands”
	It began almost as soon as I woke up. In fact, it was what caused my awakening. It sounded like there was something crawling within the walls of my bedroom. Mice, I thought. I rubbed my eyes and got out of bed.
	I shower silently. I never understood people who listened to music or sang in the shower. Silence is what I liked. Even the sound of the running water made me cringe. The warm water pounded at my back. I felt something soft on my shoulder. I turned around quickly, a chill running up my spine. I turned down the cold water.
	I tried to relax again, but the chill never went away. I stepped out of the shower and over to the sink. I pulled a razor and shaving cream out of the medicine cabinet. As I closed the cabinet, I saw the towel that was hanging up drop to the floor in the mirror. I turned around quizzically. Shaking my head and sighing, I bent down to pick up the towel and put it back on the rack just as I saw something scurry across the tiled floor to the sliver of space between the opened bathroom door and the wall. Fuck, it has to be rats. I quickly finished shaving and went downstairs to the kitchen.
Starting a fresh pot of coffee, I tried to remember if I had any rat traps left somewhere. Maybe that would warm me up. I opened the door to the pantry and stood on my toes so I could see the contents of the top shelf. I saw the outline of something and reached my hand in. I felt around until my fingers ran into something soft. It moved just as I went to grab it. I jumped and stepped back. Instinctively, I put my hand over my chest to calm myself. I heard the last few drops dripping into the coffee pot. I poured myself a cup. As I sat, sipping at my coffee, I convinced myself that it was only my imagination. Imagination? Wow, I haven’t used that in years. It was hard for me to even remember the last time my mind wandered elsewhere. Well, there were those times when I- no, I won’t go into that.
	I heard a child outside, screaming with joy. I stood up and walked to the kitchen window. Pushing back the curtain, I could see the young boy running through a sprinkler. He screamed again, causing my fist to clench and jaws to lock. There was a sudden, loud crash behind me. I whipped around to find the coffee pot lying in hundreds of pieces on the floor. How had it fallen? Did the rat knock it over? I sighed and went to the hallway closet for rags and a broom.
	I threw away the broken glass, and washed the mug I had used. I decided to check the garage for something to kill this rat that kept ruining my morning. I moved past the plastic containers, which were now starting to fill up the garage, to the tools. I really needed to clean them off from the last time I used them. I rustled through a box until I found an old poison rat trap. I opened it and saw it had already been used.
	I heard the clicking of heels on the driveway outside the garage door. I sighed to myself and threw the trap away. I heard the doorbell ring and started making my way to the front door. As I was closing the garage door, I felt a tug at the bottom of my pant leg. I looked down, hoping to catch the rat red-handed, but the doorbell rang again. I huffed and stomped to the front of the house. I opened the door halfway.
	“Hi,” a young blonde woman was standing on the old welcome mat, smiling at me.
	I opened the door fully, “Hello.”
	“I just wanted to introduce myself. I just moved in next door,” she smiled and held her hand out.
	I looked down at her hand for a moment, then back up to meet her eyes. I shook her hand slowly.
	When she pulled away, I noticed her fidgeting with her bracelets, “Well, it was nice meeting you. If you ever need anything, don’t be afraid to ask.”
	I flicked my tongue across my lips, still staring at her hands. I smiled at her, “I’ll be sure to do that.”
	I closed the door silently and wiped my face with my hand. I turned around and saw grey everywhere. Rats weren’t the cause of my shake up this morning. All around me were severed hands. Shit, I left the garage door open. They began to climb up my pant legs. I tried shaking them off, but they held tight. I began swatting at them. They covered my eyes and mouth. There were just too many.

title: "Hands" a short story I wrote for my English class

question: Summarize what the narrator thinks is in their apartment.

answer: The narrator initially thinks that rats are in their apartment. Objects keep falling over. They hear scurrying sounds. But they never directly see a rat. Yet they remain convinced it is rats.

question: What is the actual cause of the strange noises in the narrator's apartment?

answer: Severed hands which climb up the narrator's pants. It is unclear if this is really happening. It has the characteristics of a hallucination.


text:
Feature

Here's what the U.S. government shutdown cost.

 [565091_shutdown22.jpg]
150 F-35S: The Pentagon’s most expensive weapons program features jets that cost $159 million a pop.

TWITTER: Some projections of the short-form social networking site’s value after its IPO exceed $20 billion.

5 LARGE HADRON COLLIDERS: The most powerful particle accelerator, which made last year’s discovery of the Higgs boson possible, cost $4.75 billion to build (but it costs another $1 billion annually to operate).

13 WEEKS OF WAR IN AFGHANISTAN:  The United States spent $91.5 billion on the war in Afghanistan in fiscal year 2013 — that’s $1.76 billion a week.

HALF A WARREN BUFFETT: A little less, actually. The investment guru’s net worth is $58.5 billion.

EL SALVADOR’S ECONOMY:  The country’s entire GDP last year clocked in at $23.86 billion.

ICELAND’S ECONOMY, DOUBLED: Icelandic GDP for 2012 was $13.66 billion.

2 AIRCRAFT CARRIERS: The cost of the newest U.S. carrier, CVN 78, which has been in production since 2008, is $12.8 billion.

6 FREEDOM TOWERS: One World Trade Center isn’t the world’s tallest skyscraper, but it is the most expensive, costing $3.8 billion to build.

16 BURJ KHALIFAS: The world’s tallest building was significantly less expensive than Freedom Tower: $1.5 billion.

9 MULTI-YEAR MARS EXPLORATION MISSIONS: The Mars Curiosity Rover and Science Lab mission (including development, rocketing to Mars, landing, and rolling all over the Gale Crater) cost $2.5 billion.

14 PERCENT OF THE MARSHALL PLAN: The United States dedicated $17.6 billion to Europe’s recovery in 1948. Adjusted for inflation, that comes out to $165.59 billion today.

100 LOUISIANA PURCHASES: The United States paid France a cool $15 million for the Louisiana Territory in 1803. Even after two centuries of inflation, that’s just $226 million.

15 BUCKINGHAM PALACES: The fanciest digs in the world was appraisedat $1.56 billion by Britain’s Nationwide Building Society last year.

1.75 MAN-MADE ISLAND PARADISES: The World, the failed effort to build a luxury private island complex in Dubai, cost $14 billion and was comprised of 300 islands dredged up off the Emirati coast.

A (THEORETICAL) NUCLEAR FUSION REACTOR: American and European scientists are trying to develop that holy grail of energy production: a fusion reactor. Optimistic assessments project technology could be advanced enough to build a fusion facility for $20 billion — 15 years from now, maybe.

5 PERCENT OF THE STARSHIP ENTERPRISE: Yes, the one from _Star Trek_. Raw materials, labor, computers, weapons, propulsion, and crew would come out to a whopping $479 billion.

0.000000028% OF THE DEATH STAR: The Enterprise is a bargain compared to the Galactic Empire’s behemoth space station, which economists at Lehigh University estimated would cost $852 septillion. (It looks like this: $852,000,000,000,000,000.)

15 IRON MANS: That’s eight state-of-the-art armored, weaponized, flying suits and a playboy billionaire lifestyle (Malibu beach house and luxury cars included), at a cost of $1.6 billion — 15 times over.

120 HOPE DIAMONDS: The Smithsonian centerpiece, a whopping 45.52 carats, is worth $200 million.

HALF THE BEIJING OLYMPICS: New airport terminals, sports stadiums, hotels, staffing — the whole shebang set China back an estimated $42 billion in 2008.

TWO LONDON OLYMPICS: The Brits got a comparative bargain in 2012. Those games only cost $14.42 billion.

THE APOLLO SPACE PROGRAM: The two-decade effort to put men on the moon cost $25.4 billion — in the 1960s. Adjusted for inflation, the program racks up a $150 billion check.

J. DANA STUSTER is a policy analyst at the National Security Network. Twitter: @jdanastuster

THOMAS STACKPOLE is an Assistant Editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tom_stackpole

More from Foreign Policy

By Taboola

question: Which US Government shutdown is this article concerning?

answer: The article does not address this

question: How much money did the US spend on the war in Afghanistan in 2013?

answer: 91.5 billion dollars

question: What is Warren Buffett's net worth at the time of this article?

answer: 58.5 billion USD

question: How much did the US aircraft carrier CVN 78 cost?

answer: 12.8 billion USD

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: This article lists a variety of items that are equal in cost to the money lost during a particular US government shutdown (date not provided).


text:
The 1967–68 DREXEL DRAGONS MEN'S BASKETBALL TEAM represented Drexel Institute of Technology during the 1967–68 men's basketball season. The Dragons, led by 16th year head coach Samuel Cozen, played their home games at Sayre High School and were members of the College–Southern division of the Middle Atlantic Conferences (MAC).

Samuel Cozen stepped down from the head coach position during the season on January 31 due to medial issues.[1] The team was 10–2 at time. He was replaced by interim head coach Robert Morgan who finished the season 2–7 as the head coach.

The team finished the season 12–9.

Roster

Schedule

|- !colspan=9 style=“background:#F8B800; color:#002663;”| Regular season |- |- !colspan=9 style=“background:#F8B800; color:#002663;”| 1968 Middle Atlantic Conference Men's Basketball Tournament

[1]

title: 1967–68 Drexel Dragons men's basketball team

question: Who were the Drexel Dragons?

answer: A men's basketball team.

question: Whom did they represent?

answer: The Drexel Institute of Technology.

question: Which years were they active?

answer: 1967-1968.

question: Where did they play their home games?

answer: Sayre High School.

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: The Drexel Dragons were a men's basketball team representing the Drexel Institute of Technology during the 1967–68 men's basketball season.


text:
All criticism is awesome! thanks
                 A Bad Suggestion
From the seventh floor balcony, I waited for the stars to rise and fall. Just as soon as they went up, they were greeted by another far away star, and together they would dance in a melancholy stupor until they met at a focal point of blackness, and subsequently collided leaving smolder and hot metal parading the sky. The 7TH floor of the abandoned children’s hospital was an ideal place to watch them, and I remember doing so with my older brother. Sometimes we would cheer for more rising stars, and sometimes we would recognize the stars for what they truly were. Our moods were interchangeable based on how we felt, and often, were just interpretations, for they never lasted. In the end it was the same old story. Genocide had swept our nation like a broom, and its only remaining duty was to sweep the rest of us under the rug. We were of the last ones there; the survivors. We were alone and had nothing to rely on but each other, and our father’s mandatory last advisement: “Trust No one.” This, of course, was months before his last and more imperative words: “Run!” On this particular night the moon was full, and whenever there was a hiatus in the back and forth of gunfire and floating bombs, we could still see our native Africa illuminate from the same light that had guided our ancestors. We got tired of listening to the clamor of bullets ricochet, and bored of watching the flares and missiles illuminate the sky. We were hungry, and had nowhere to sleep. It was time to begin our night’s usual routine of scavenging. My brother nudged me in the shoulder, “Come on, we have to go now.” We turned around from the balcony and sprinted down the concrete stairs of the hospital until we reached the bottom. When we made it out of the hospital stairs, the smell hit us. The stench of death is something that is overwhelming at first, but just like anything if you give it time, it will either take on the droll task of expected repetition or, it will haunt your every dream, and stalk your every move. It was most definitely stalking us and it scared us more than ever. We proceeded to run immediately to our right, through the cold sand, and past the huge tree. Usually, the task of running just on the outskirts of immediate war was enough to urge us to keep running. However, on this particular night, the leafless branches of the tree collided with the silver radiance of the moon in an utmost peculiar way. We stopped and watched the branches sway just for a moment. I don’t know why we stopped. Maybe it was just intuition telling us, but our intuition had been sidetracked for so long, we dared not to think that. Our momentary seconds of splendor were soon over, and we began to run again. The sand whistled beneath our cracked black feet as we ran. I remember the unusual chill in the air, and the warmness that would embrace my face each time a far- away missile would light up the sky, and leave its presence booming in the echoes of the barren desert. As we ran, the village where we used to live approached our immediate right, and just adjacent to them were the black windows and torn rubble that used to be our home. We didn’t dare look, for if we did we might have tried to decipher our home from the others, which of course would just perpetuate the fact that there were no homes left at all. It was important to us that we carry no baggage, we were free of emotion. We were no longer people, and I only say this because we had no characteristics of any normal person. We were too young to generate any logical conclusions on our non-generic personalities, so we just went with the notion that we had none. Our feet kept moving until we reached an old tire factory. The smell of burning rubber was still lingering in the air like a flame from an old wick, as we mechanically hopped over the only part of the fence that was not barb wired. There was a light on in the distance. If somebody was there we would rip them to shreds. We didn’t care who they were or why they were there. Trust no one. That was our motto, and we stuck to it like it was the law. Perhaps it was the sound of our tearing flesh on the rocks beneath us, or, perhaps it was the flickering shadow that left its impression so memorably on the hard dirt path. I don’t know what it was for sure, but somebody inside of that room heard us. We began to run faster as the room beyond us started to rumble with preparation. My brother pulled out a long blade that sparkled in the moonlight. Then, that door opened. He warned us to stop, but we kept on going. We were savages. As we neared, the outline of the man’s skull began to familiarize itself with the images of my mind. I paid no attention. The man pulled out a large assault rifle, and we stopped dead in our tracks. He shot my brother between the eyes and I locked mine with his. My brother was dead on the ground. He was only following the advice that my father had given him: Run, and trust no one. He did well. Then, it became clear to me and my shadowed counterpart just exactly who we were looking at. The man I was staring at was my father. As he dropped down in tears, I glanced at my brother’s bloody corpse, and soon after brought my head up to look at the battles in the distance. I took one hard glance at my father, and then remembered his last pieces of advice to me and my deceased brother. I proceeded to turn around and run as fast as I could.

title: Short Story-A Bad Suggestion

question: Why do the narrator and his brother are alone?

answer: There's an ongoing war. The local populace also seems to be in conflict with one another. We don't know why they are separated from their family.

question: Why don't they want to look at the houses?

answer: They don't want to notice the ruins of their old home.

question: Why does the narrator's brother end up dead?

answer: Because both them and their father act according to the advice he gave previously - trust no one and run.

question: Where does the story take place?

answer: Somewhere in the massive continent of Africa.

question: Write a ~4 sentence summary.

answer: The narrator and his brother live in a state of total anarchy and chaos, with everyone out for themselves. They act according to the last advice their father gave - run and trust no one. In a tire factory, they see someone and try to run, but the man pulls out an assault rifle and shoots the narrator's brother between the eyes. The narrator realizes the man is his father, and he acts according to his advice and runs.


text:
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy.

Prior to 20th century

-   191 BCE - Romans in power in region.
-   1st-3rd century CE - Roman Catholic diocese of Ravenna established.[1]
-   402 CE - Capital of the Western Roman Empire relocated to Ravenna from Milan (until 476).[2]
-   425 CE - San Giovanni Evangelista church construction begins.
-   476 - Odoacer in power.
-   493 - Theoderic the Great in power.
-   505 - Arian Sant'Apollinare Nuovo church construction begins.
-   520 - Mausoleum of Theoderic built near town.
-   526 - (church) built.
-   540 - Forces of Byzantine Belisarius take Ravenna.[3]
-   547 - Basilica of San Vitale consecrated.[4]
-   549 - Basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe consecrated near Ravenna.[5]
-   584 - Exarchate of Ravenna established (approximate date).
-   751 - Lombards in power.
-   777 - Ravenna under rule of the Holy See.[6]
-   967 - Imperial Diet held by Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor
-   1441 - Venetians in power.
-   1512 - Battle of Ravenna (1512) fought near town during the War of the League of Cambrai.
-   1737 - (canal) to Adriatic Sea created.
-   1752 - Società Letteraria Ravennate (learned society) founded.
-   1797 - Ravenna becomes part of the of the French client Cispadane Republic.
-   1804 - Biblioteca Classense (library) established.[7]
-   1826 - Accademia filarmonica (music academy) founded.
-   1852 - Teatro Comunale Alighieri opens.
-   1859 - Papal rule ends.
-   1860 - Ravenna becomes part of the Kingdom of Piedmont.
-   1863 - Ravenna railway station opens.
-   1897 - Population: 67,760.[8]

20th century

-   1911 - Population: 71,581.[9]
-   1913 - Unione Sportiva Ravennate (football club) formed.
-   1921 - (railway) begins operating.
-   1927 - (library) established.[10]
-   1966 - Stadio Bruno Benelli (stadium) opens.
-   1983 - (theatre group) formed.
-   1990 - Ravenna Festival of music begins.
-   1997 - becomes mayor.

21st century

-   2006 - becomes mayor.
-   2011 - Some of the 2011 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup played in Ravenna.
-   2013 - Population: 154,288.[11]
-   2014 - November: Emilia-Romagna regional election, 2014 held.
-   2016 - June: Italian local elections, 2016 held; Michele De Pascale becomes mayor.

[1]

[2]  Retrieved 21 December 2016

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

title: Timeline of Ravenna

question: Write a ~1 sentence summary.

answer: This article is a timeline of the history of the city of Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy.


text:
_LET'S BE FRIENDS_ () is a 2005 French film directed and written by Olivier Nakache & Éric Toledano.

Synopsis

Thirty-year-old computer scientist, physicist, bachelor, sickly shy and hypochondriac, Claude Mandelbaum leads a life all the more dull that his last, and only, love story goes back two years. One day, on the occasion of the marriage of his best friend, Daniel, he meets Serge, a divorced fifty-year-old who takes full advantage of his celibacy by chaining the adventures. Shortly after, on the advice of Daniel, Claude resolved to make an appointment in a marriage agency of a particular kind, where it is the women who contact the men. In the waiting room, he falls face to face with Serge, who invites him to have a drink in his home ...

Cast

-   Jean-Paul Rouve as Claude Mendelbaum
-   Gérard Depardieu as Serge
-   Annie Girardot as Madame Mendelbaum
-   Lionel Abelanski as Daniel
-   Isabelle Renauld as Sophie
-   Yves Jacques as Germain
-   Valérie Benguigui as Eva
-   Jonathan Lambert as Totof
-   Élisabeth Vitali as Véronique
-   Xavier De Guillebon as Philippe
-   Mar Sodupe as Julia Marquez
-   Flore Grimaud as Sylvie
-   Caroline Frank as Manon
-   Tilly Mandelbrot as Pauline
-   Cassandra Harrouche as Justine
-   Virginie Caliari as Barbara
-   Mimi Félixine as Latifah
-   Thierry Godard as Mathias
-   Frédéric Maranber as Jean-Mi
-   Jacqueline Staup as Tata Muguette
-   Catherine Hosmalin as Woman speed dating

title: Let's Be Friends (film)

question: Who directed Let's Be Friends?

answer: Let's Be Friends was directed by Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano.

question: When was Let's Be Friends released?

answer: Let's Be Friends was released in 2005.

question: Who is the main character of the film?

answer: Claude is the main character of the film.

question: Who plays Germain in the film?

answer: Yves Jacques plays Germain in the film.

question: Who does Virginie Caliari play in the film?

answer: Virginie Caliari plays Barbara in the film.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: Let's Be Friends is a French Film about the romance between Claude and Serge. Included is a list of the cast members and the characters they play.


text:
The farmer examined his apple trees. They were withered. Rain that never came teased him now, dabbling his face. But the growing season was over. The crop had failed. Knobby little apples hung from limp branches, the acuity of their thirst long since passed as they had shriveled into hardened corpuscles of seeds, preserving their contents in resignation. Worthless fruit. It was harvest time, and there was nothing to reap.

The farmer looked towards his dilapidated house. His wife watched from the doorway, holding a dirty child. Another clung to her knees. Small voices could be heard from deeper within the sagging, musky hovel. There would be no crop this year. There was nothing to sell. There was nothing to save. His wife's face was empty. She knew. Her arms bounced the baby on her hip, but her eyes betrayed her soul. She held his gaze, and their eyes communicated what they could not say. There was neither a question nor an answer to be had. They simply knew.

The farmer turned back towards the sun-baked, dusty orchard. The sky continued to mock him, sprinkling bits of water over his impotent crop, insolently offering hints of life months past due. The farmer turned his head towards the sky and its wispy clouds. Drops moistened his lips. Even still it did not *rain*. This was an insincere offering, a sadistic intimation of life and happiness when there was already no hope for that. Like asking a dying man to attend a festival as his last breaths rattle through his chest.

The farmer again turned back towards his house. His wife was no longer standing in the doorway. The wind began to pick up, and the sky's final insult was not enough to keep the dust from whipping apart from the ground and stinging his eyes. He covered his face with his collar and walked stiffly towards his home. His bones ached. They had all been rationing as well as they could. They were all skinny. The children cried too much. The baby was sick. There wasn't enough milk for it.

And there was nothing to harvest. There had been no miracle. They had not been saved. He couldn't sell this withered fruit. Nor could they consume it themselves. His mind felt dead. He felt as if he were already gone. He felt so weary. He wondered if there was anything to be done. Anything at all.

He stepped inside, and his family looked at him expectantly. They knew he would provide for them. He was a father. A husband. It was his duty. He was an honorable man. He would do his duty. He looked at each of the small, grimy faces and then to his wife. Her eyes held the same tired pain as his own, he knew. There was no blame in them, no reproach. Just an aching weariness, the final expression of one who is passing beyond their capacity to endure. The look of defeat.

He sat at their table. It was a leaning artifact, an heirloom no one else had wanted. He put his head in his hands for a moment. But he straightened up. He looked again at the faces that surrounded him, looking upon him for their salvation. He told them of the rain outside. It had come at last, he said. There was still some time. In only a little while the fruit would absorb the water, the long-awaited water. They would have fresh apples, and applesauce, and fritters, and pies, and they would sell their surplus and they would eat fresh bread, and would buy a roast from the butcher and display their harvest at festival time. The rain had come, he said. Everything will be alright.

He got up from the table and walked back outside. The rain had stopped, and the wispy clouds were growing thinner as the sun returned, shining down with the warmth of Hell.

He gazed out over his orchard. There was one thing he could do, he thought. He could talk to the Seer. He picked a piece of withered fruit from the nearest tree and put it in his pocket. After pausing for another moment to look once more upon his little dried-up orchard and house, he began to walk purposefully. He walked for hours.

Dusk had begun to fall. He was walking up a hill. There was a crumbling stone tower at the top, and even in the twilight the grass around it was slightly greener than one might consider natural in the midst of such a devastating drought. Or so he supposed. It was hard to tell. He reached the top of the hill, and faced a heavy, oaken door deep-set in the masonry.

He raised the heavy brass knocker and let it fall. The impact boomed through the tower and into the air around him. There was not an immediate answer, so he lifted it again. The second impact rang like the first, and a few bats careened out of the highest portions of the tower, where stones had fallen away and left spaces for them to reside. The door swung open, but no one was there. A steep, winding stairwell led down into the bowels of the hill. The farmer peered into the gloom, and seeing nothing, began making his way down the steps.

The tower went deep. Far more of it existed beneath the earth than above it. As he descended, he thought about his family. His home. His orchard. All was lost. He imagined being the last of them to die. How he would have to bury them all, because he was the strongest. Because that would be his duty. Husband. Father. Mortician. Grave-digger. Priest.

The stairs ended. He could see nothing in the dark, save a bluish glow a short distance ahead of him. A reflecting pool. A small, robed figure hunched over it, silhouetted. The farmer approached the Seer. When he stood at his side, the Seer turned his gaze toward the farmer and faced him with white, marbled eyes which did not see light.

“Give me the apple.”

The farmer was startled, but reached his hand into his pocket. His fingers closed around the gnarled, inedible fruit. He withdrew his hand and presented it into the Seer. The Seer examined it for a moment, then threw it into the pool. The water swirled. The farmer's eyes grew wide as he beheld his house, his orchard, his family. His sagging house. His dry, dead, dust-covered orchard. His starving family. He felt the Seer's gaze upon him.

“What do you want to see?”

The farmer wanted to know if there was a way out. If there was anything to be done. If the orchard could be saved. If there was food anywhere to be found. I there was a way to avoid burying the ones he loved. The Seer reached inside his robes and pulled out a handful of indiscernible matter, which he deposited into the swirling pool.

“Here is the future.”

The scene remained the same for a moment. And then clouds began to roll in. A peal of thunder. The farmer saw his family come out of the house to watch the sky. His wife, still holding the baby, lifted her free arm towards the heavens in rapturous anticipation. The other children ran into the orchard excitedly. The sky turned dark and vital, rich and grey with moisture. The clouds swelled and burst above them. Torrents of life-giving rain drenched them and the orchard. Rivulets of water ran between the parched roots, more than enough. The apples took new shape. The orchard became heavy with ripe fruit, abundant with good apples. They had all been saved.

The farmer continued watching the pool. He watched his family pick the apples. There were so many. They were all laughing in the rain. They were happy. The rain, the rain... His wife turned and looked out of the pool into his eyes. Her face was radiant. She was again the woman he had fallen in love with. Their children danced and played in the puddles, and the fear was gone.

The farmer thanked the Seer. He had been wrong to despair. The rain would come. The rain always came. He should have known. The rain always came. He began running towards the stairs, but the Seer's voice stopped him dead.

“You mustn't go back.”

The farmer slowly turned around. He looked at the Seer with disbelieving eyes. His elation had turned to dread in an instant. He didn't move. His shoulders sagged, and he only waited for the Seer to speak again. The Seer beckoned towards the pool.

“They will only live so long as you watch them from here. If you go back, they will die. They will shrivel into dust. And then you will bury them with your own wasting hands.”

title: Apples

question: What mood is the author trying to evoke?

answer: Foreboding, desperation, desolation.


text:
[Portrait of Joachim Grassi]

JOACHIM GRASSI (Italian spelling GIOACHINO, 1837 – 19 August 1904) was an Italian architect of Austrian/French nationality who worked for the Siamese government in the late nineteenth century. He was among the first European architects employed by King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), and contributed extensively to Siam (now known as Thailand)'s architecture, especially the Neo-Classic, during the time of its modernization.

Biography

Grassi was born in Capodistria under the Austro-Hungarian Empire (in present-day Koper, Slovenia). He moved from Shanghai to Bangkok and in 1870 he joined Bonneville, a French timber merchant firm in Thailand. Outlook in timber business wasn't bright for him but before he decided to leave the country, he got the contract to build the Concordia Club - the first foreigner club in Bangkok.

Joachim Grassi married Lucie Nho in Siam and had three sons, Felix Auguste Grassi (1880), Eugène Cesar (1881-1941)[1] and Georges Raphael (1884). He received French nationallity in 1883. Around 1875, Grassi Brothers & Co., his civil engineers company was established with his two brothers, Antonio and Giacomo Grassi, situated on Chaopraya river in Klongsarn area opposite of UK Embassy then,[2] providing architectural and construction services.

In 1893, amid the conflict between Thailand and France, he sold his company, Grassi Brothers & Co. to Mr. Edward Bonnevillie and went back to his home town in Capodistria. He married Amalia Stölker, sister of Julius Stölker one of the partners in Grassi Brother & Co. and had two children. Joachim Grassi died on August 19, 1904 at the age of 68 in Capodistria.

Works

Grassi Brothers & Co.'s architectural and construction achievements in Thailand include:[3]

1.  Concordia Club, built around 1873 or earlier, the first (French) club in Siam, on Charoenkrung road near Rhongpasi lane, later changed to Hotel de la Prix and was long since demolished.
2.  Bang Pa-in Palace (some of the buildings such as Warophat-Phiman throne hall (1872), Devaraj-Kunlai gate)
3.  Wat Niwet Thammaprawat, 1873–1875, a Buddhist temple in gothic style with a church tower in Bang Pa-in.
4.  Residence of Phraya Rajanupraphan (Sudjai and Thui Bunnag), son of the Chaophraya Phanuwong Mahakosathibodi (Thuam Bunnag), circa. early 1870s
5.  Residence of Chaophraya Surawong Waiyawat (Wora Bunnag)
6.  Portuguese Ambassador's Residence (Portuguese Consulate in Bangkok), 1875
7.  Buraphaphirom Palace, 1875–1880, demolished to give way to a market.[4]
8.  Prince Saisanitwong Palace, 1875-1882
9.  Prince Svasti Sobhon Palace, 1876-1877
10. Prince Rajasakdi Samosorn Palace
11. Saphan Than Palace, circa 1879
12. Courts of Justice, 1880-1882
13. Tha Phra Palace, 1880-1883
14. Statue of Queen Sunanda at Saranrom Park, 1880
15. Sunandalaya School, 1880
16. Printing house at Chang Rong Si Bridge, 1881-1882
17. Residence of Chao Muen Wai Woranat, 1881–1882, was demolished and became Dusit Thani hotel
18. New Pratumwan Palace (Windsor Palace or Wang Klang Thung or Wang Mai), 1881–1884, as the residence of the Crown Prince Vajirunhis, later became part of Chulalongkorn University and was later demolished to make way for the construction of Suphachalasai Stadium.
19. Royal Barrack (Front soldier barracks), 1882–1884, now the Ministry of Defence
20. Cavalry barracks, 1883 or early
21. Conception Church bell tower, 1883
22. Saint Joseph Church, 1883–1891, in Ayutthaya province.
23. Customs House, 1884–1887, a neo-paladian group of buildings next to French Embassy on Chao Phraya river.
24. Chulachomklao Fort, 1884–1893, Samutprakarn province
25. Henry Alabaster tomb monument in the Bangkok Protestant Cemetery, 1885
26. Assumption College old school building, 1887-1890
27. Victoria and Saovabhak Buildings at Siriraj Hospital, 1888
28. Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, 1888–1890, the first establishment on the mouth of Khlong Phadung Krung Kasem, was demolished and now is the site of the Royal Orchid Sheraton Hotel.
29. Old Bangkok Remand Prison (Bangkok maximum security prison), 1888–1891, on Maha Chai Road

Other works;

-   Siam River Steamboat Company
-   Railway in Singapore
-   Antonio Grassi's tomb monument in Koper, Slovenia, 1887
-   Irrigation System Plan for Chaopraya river basin under Siam Lands, Canal and Irrigation Co., Ltd.[5]
-   Rangsit Prayurasakdi Canal construction,1890
-   Railway in Malacca, 1898

[1] The Siamese Composer Eugène Cinda Grassi Bangkok 1881- Paris 1941 by Philippe de Lustrac. https://tci-thaijo.org/index.php/JUCR/article/download/20326/17657/

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

title: Joachim Grassi

question: How many times was Joachim Grassi and how many children does he have?

answer: Twice. First time to Lucie Nho in Siam. They had three sons. The second time was to Amalia Stolker in Capodistria. They had two children.

question: At what age did Joachim Grassi move to Bangkok?

answer: He was 33 years old when he moved from Shanghai to Bangkok.

question: How long did Joachim Grassi live in Capodistria before he passed away?

answer: He lived there for 11 years before he passed away.

question: List all of the work Grassi Brothers & Co that they designed and built between 1880 and 1885.

answer:
1. Courts of Justice, 1880-1882
2. Tha Phra Palace, 1880-1883
3. Statue of Queen Sunanda at Saranrom Park, 1880
4. Sunandalaya School, 1880
5. Printing house at Chang Rong Si Bridge, 1881-1882
6. Residence of Chao Muen Wai Woranat, 1881–1882, was demolished and became Dusit Thani hotel
7. New Pratumwan Palace (Windsor Palace or Wang Klang Thung or Wang Mai), 1881–1884, as the residence of the Crown Prince Vajirunhis, later became part of Chulalongkorn University and was later demolished to make way for the construction of Suphachalasai Stadium.
8. Royal Barrack (Front soldier barracks), 1882–1884, now the Ministry of Defence
9. Cavalry barracks, 1883 or earlier
10. Conception Church bell tower, 1883

question: How was Grassi Brothers & Co. formed?

answer: Joachim Grassi formed this civil engineering company with his two brothers, Antonio and Giacomo. It was situated on Chaopraya tiver in Klongsam area opposite of UK Embassy. It provided architectural and construction services. This company was sold in 1893 to Mr. Edward Bonneville amid the conflict between Thailand and France. Julius Stolker was one of the partners in Grassi Brothers & Co.

question: List all the projects that Joachim Grassi worked on outside Siam.

answer:
 - Railway in Singapore
 - Antonio Grassi's tomb monument in Koper, Slovenia, 1887
 - Railway in Malacca, 1898

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: Joachim Grassi was an Italian architect of Austrian/French nationality who worked for the Siamese government in the late nineteenth century. He was among the first European architects employed by King Chulalongkorn (Rama V), and contributed extensively to Siam (now known as Thailand)'s architecture, especially the Neo-Classic, during the time of its modernization.


text:
I traveled around the world to browse underground markets to buy and sell rare animals and mystical creatures. I currently held two in my inventory - a miniature giraffe and a gnome. I was also well known among the wealthy as I would help them buy these breathing gems for them to keep as pets.

My current trip had one purpose - to negotiate a deal to purchase a young elephant for the Kardashian family. This elephant was special. At 5 feet tall, it had trunks for each leg, making it look more like an octopus on land. In a pool house in Beverly Hills, I sat across the owner of the elephant, arguing over terms of the sale. The fat Kardashian then barged in in a panic, crying her eyes out because her boyfriend, Russell Brand, had been kidnapped. I didn't care, but was pissed that it got in the way of my deal. Hoping it would help my commission, I volunteered to help find Russell. Then, there I was, driving their Hummer all over L.A.

We stopped at a gas station. I insisted to pump gas while they all went inside. Suddenly, a red truck sped through the station and, from the bed, two men in black ski masks tossed over a 4' by 4' metal plate, engraved in Arabic, and peeled out. As soon as the smoke from their exhaust cleared everyone began to slowly crowd the mysterious plate. The middle eastern cashier shoved through the crowd and fixed his glasses as he read it. He translated it for us.

"We have your infidel. We will not negotiate or return him to you. There's no amount of money that will buy away the pleasure of watching him suffer."

The police came and an investigative team drove the the Kardashian family to their headquarters while I stayed behind, realizing I had no idea where I was at this remote gas station. Dusk was approaching, and across a mesquite field I could see a square building with an empty parking lot which lights were just turned on.

I don't know how or why I was lured into it, but as I approached the building, I just knew it was a museum about Islamic expansion. I entered and was greeted by the curator, an old Arab man. He guided me through his many exhibits, standing before each one as he further explained how Islam was the seed of western civilization. He then led me into a wing where they dealt with those that defiled the name of the Prophet. I cannot rationalize why I kept walking along without fear for my safety, but I followed anyway.

I was in awe. There were flat screens along walls with crowds of 4 or 5 young students in lab coats in front of each one, alternating their heads between tilting them upward to listen and downward to turn the pages in the pad they were writing copiously in. I pardoned myself from the curator and stood behind one crowd to watch what they were learning. The video showed how starved, naked women are skinned. It was a controlled and relaxed demonstration, starting with hanging them upside down, cleanly severing their jugular and draining them of their blood. The demonstrator calmly explained that doing this would avoid bruising and helped preserve their skin color. He would then dislocate her jaw, force his arm half-forearm-deep into her throat, and jerked it out with intestines following behind. After removing the rest of her organs, they'd remove the skin and muscle from the bones. The students looked on with a fixed curious gaze, devoid of any sympathy, jotting their notes.

This wing was full of such demonstrations, displays of devices, history of techniques, and so on. I joined the curator again and kept walking along and noticed that tourists were starting to walk in, curiously looking around as if what they were seeing weren't human beings in utter pain.

As the Arab curator explained the mechanics of one of the devices he invented, his face was interrupted by his own excitement as he just remembered that his latest technique would be demonstrated live that evening. It would be the first time a human spider would be created. Inspired by 'The Human Centipede,' he wanted to push the envelope by creating a beast: to one torso as the centerpiece (arms and head attached), he'd attach two hips on each side, with legs attached, knees bent upward. The head and arms would still function and the nervous systems of all five bodies would be merged. He asked if I wanted to see who had been chosen to be the center piece and, entranced by all of this, I agreed.

He then lead me into a dark room that I later realized was a stable. He turned the light on to shine on a scrawny man clothed only in hay. It was Russell Brand. Russell awakened and rushed to the bars of the door, reaching his arm through them towards me, beginning me to let him out. If only he knew the monster he was doomed to become. The human inside me knew that he needed to be saved, but the money-driven rare animal trader inside drooled at the idea of how much a Human Spider would be worth in the market. I sighed and smiled, patted the old curator on the back and said, "I'd love to stay and observe the demonstration." Russell's eyes teared up as he watched what he thought was a sensible human being turn into an idle observer of his impending transformation.

We walked away, back into the torture wing of the museum and it was now filled with more lay tourists. As the tourists noticed the curator was present, they welcomed him with cheers and applause. He politely excused himself from me and like a celebrity he was welcomed into the crowd with pats and handshakes. They were in love with him. Two white elderly women, with rosaries around their necks, begged him to be part of his experiments. He quickly yanked the rosaries from their necks and stood coldly in front of them, offended. The crowd was silenced. The women turned towards each other and started to giggle which later broke out into laughter. They fell onto their knees and began to undress themselves, still giddy and laughing. The curator reached into one of his displays and took out an antique knife. He held it above his head and rotated in place to be sure the audience could see what he had chosen. The women excitedly stretched out their throats, almost eager for the legend to slash their necks, as if it was an autograph. They still giggled while gurgling on their blood after receiving his autograph. As the gurgling and the sound of naked flesh slapping the cold tiles of their jerking arms subsided, the crowd erupted in cheer and elation.

title: The Human Spider - a dreamer's account

question: Summarize the tension in the story.

answer: Though there are many moments of upset throughout this brief, taut story, the primary tension of this lies in the capture of an infidel. In various incarnations, the narrator hears and witnesses speeches and acts regarding an alleged infidel. At one point, there appears to be a warning issued by alleged terrorists at the gas station. At another, there is an inventor/curator of sorts who may or may not be the infidel. Finally, there is the execution of several women by the inventor/curator

question: Summarize the main theme of this story.

answer: For whatever reason-as this is a dream, so it is subject to interpretation-the narrator's thoughts seem to focus on and return to the idea of Arab/Islamic dissidents. There is the gang of men who peel out of the gas station, claiming to have kidnapped an infidel; the curious hybrid inventor/curator who is described as Arab and whose work may not be fully sanctioned by whatever dream-world government is in place; and finally, there is the execution of the women, which might be a showing of an interpretation of Shariah Law in which women are held to strict conservative laws and public beheadings do occur.

question: Summarize what factors in real life could have motivated the Islamic/Arab parts of this dream.

question: Is this dream mostly positive or negative? Explain your answer.

answer: The dream has facets that are both positive and negative, but it does not seem that the narrator is that bothered by what unfolds. On one hand, the events are overwhelmingly tense-kidnappings, a torture museum, odd and shifty characters, and the gruesome public beheading of laughing women. On the other hand, the narrator seems to have played the role of an observer, mostly taking in the events happening around them rather than participating in them or being subjected to them. Over all, the narrator's tone seems to remain more on the positive side, but perhaps this is an effect of knowing it's just a dream. They get to travel the world doing something fascinating and experience adventures peppered with famous people, like the Kardashians and Russell Brand.


text:
Proctor was lying down somewhere. He didn't know how he got there. The last memory he could think of was that he was driving down his road. He couldn't remember much else. His memories were hazy; He couldn't think straight. Just as these thoughts were going through his head, someone began to shake his arm.
“Hello? Are you okay? Are you awake?” He heard the voice say.
Proctor sat up, and opened his eyes. He realized now that he was in a large grassy field. The sun was just overhead, a large tree stood just in front of him, and the stranger was standing in front of the tree.
“My name is Royce, can you remember your name?”
“Yes, It’s…”
Proctor stopped himself. Although Royce seemed friendly enough, but there was something odd about the question he had asked. “How did you know I was having trouble with my memory?” He said.
Royce began to look confused,  “I don’t know. I guess you did wake up unconscious in the middle of a field.”
	“That makes sense.” he thought out loud, “my name’s Proctor since you asked.”
“Proctor, of course” Royce didn't sound very surprised.
	“Okay,” he said confused and slightly agitated, “Well since you know so much, can you tell me where we are?”
	Royce looked around the field, up at the tree and then back at Proctor. “Well, by appearance I’d say we’re in a field in front of a castle. But I can’t really say anything beyond that. I woke up just a few seconds before you did. I can’t remember much either.”
	“Where is this castle? I don’t see it?”
	“Well it’s… Just over that hill.”
	Proctor turned around and saw that there was indeed a very large hill. It surprised him that he didn't see it before, but maybe his mind was playing tricks on him. It took him a few minutes to climb up the hill and he was slightly out of breath when he reached the top. But as Royce had said, there was a castle about a mile away. It was made of stone, like most castles would be, it had a large wooden door, plenty of towers, and it looked like it was about four stories high. He ran to the bottom of the hill, going a bit faster since gravity was no longer working against him.
	Royce was standing in the same spot he had left him in. He was still staring at the hill. “I saw the castle right where you said it was. Do you think we should head over there? They might be able to help us with our memory.”
	“Yeah that would be a good idea,” Royce said as he continued to stare at the hill “It would also provide shelter for when it starts to rain.”
	Proctor looked up. The sky was completely covered with clouds and he could hear thunder in the distance.
	Royce seemed less suspicious now that he got to know him. They actually had quite a bit in common. They were about the same age, had similar interests and they both remember driving a car before they ended up in the field. There was however one deviation. Royce seemed to have ESP. Proctor could remember a few instances where Royce had repeated things that he had never said out loud, and then there was that hill. Could he really have climbed all the way to the top to see the castle and then ran back down before waking him up? He had said earlier that he woke up a few seconds before he did and he didn't sound like he was out of breath.
	The rain came just a few minutes before they reached the castle. Up close, Proctor could see that the castle was very rundown. The door had rotted away and he couldn't make out what was inside. He debated with himself whether or not it was a good idea to go in. But after hearing a loud crash of thunder nearby, he decided that electrocution would be a more painful death than stabbing.
	Upon entering the castle it was plain to be seen that it had been abandoned for quite some time. The skeletons of rats lay on the ground as if they had run out of food to scavenge for. The only sound they could hear were the sounds of rain and thunder outside, and the flowing of the many streams that ran through the lower parts of the castle.
The outer rooms of the castle showed signs of abandonment, but rooms further in… were different. A great battle had once taken place in there. Skeletons were all over the ground. They held spears, swords, and shields. Walls were broken down, there were claw marks on the floor and ceiling, and the furniture that wasn't broken in these rooms, was burned.  The destruction was everywhere, but it wasn't so bad that it ruined the structural integrity of the castle. Most of the major support beams were still in place and they were handling the extra weight pretty well.
“I think a dragon is bit more dangerous than getting struck by lightning!” Royce said panicking.
“A lot more,” said Proctor, “do you think we could get out before it notices us?”
As if to answer his question a giant mechanical dragon crashed through the ceiling right above their only exit. Steam came out of the many pipes on its back and its eyes glowed red from the flames that were now shooting from its mouth. Proctor remained frozen in place, both from shock at the dragon’s sudden appearance and shock from its appearance. Royce spoke up knocking him out of his stupor, “its name is Koshmar,” he said. “it is programmed to kill all who trespass.”
The dragon shook the rubble from its body and lunged forward. Proctor dove to the left, just barely avoiding the swipe of one of its claws. The beast ran straight for the wall and Crawled up it. It twisted around and shot a couple of fireballs. Proctor grabbed a shield from one of the skeletons, but saw that he didn't need it. Koshmar was directing all of its attacks at Royce. Proctor dropped his shield and replaced it with a spear. He ran toward the dragon in an attempt to stab one of its eyes. He didn't make it very far though and was sent flying by a lazy swipe of its tail. He landed near the window and could see Koshmar was shooting fireballs once again. Thunder crashed outside, and lightning struck in the distance…
Wait a second? There was something very illogical about what was going on here. Just an hour earlier he had noticed that the sun was directly overhead and not a cloud was in the sky, but now he was in the middle of a huge thunder storm! And when he woke up there wasn't a hill in sight, but he had crossed over one to see the castle! Now that he was thinking of the castle, didn't it have a wooden door when he first saw it? And what about the thunder! Doesn't thunder usually come after lightning? Where was he? Was he in some alternate dimension that was ruled by mechanical Russian dragons? Then the answer hit him. The dragon, its name was Koshmar. Koshmar is the Russian word for nightmare. He was dreaming! All he had to do was wake himself up, and this nightmare would end.
Proctor thought he was in a dream, and in a way, he was right. Moments later Royce woke up in a hospital bed, and Proctor… ceased to exist.

title: The caretaker

question: Why does Proctor share a lot of similarities with Royce?

answer: Because Proctor is, to some extent, Royce or a version of Royce and is part of the nightmare.

question: Why does Royce see things that Proctor can't, like the hill, castle, and rain clouds?

answer: Royce can see things Proctor can't because it's his nightmare.

question: What might have happened if Proctor became paranoid and separated from Royce?

answer: Speculative answer: Since Proctor is part of Royce's nightmare, he'll theoretically just wander aimlessly until Royce wakes up and he ceases to exist because nothing ever happens without Royce's thoughts.


text:
This is what I have so far. Criticism is greatly appreciated and if you guys like it I can add more.

                                         **Sleep Yet**

 	The man awoke, startled as if from a nightmare, yet he recalled no dreams. He sat up and took stock of the

blank room he found himself in. There was a shattered mirror set on a table to his right. A large door could be

found opposite his bed, intact, with the exception of a large gash in the wood where all the light in the room

 seeped from. The most curious object however, was a rather bland looking table with three drawers. It was

approximately 2 feet long and just as wide, with enough height that a chair could be pulled up and an average

sized man could uncomfortably sit. He stiffly shuffled to the mirror. Upon inspection he could see that he was only

 lightly wounded, a few scratches on his face, a  laceration above his eyebrow and a lightly blackened eye. What

really caught his attention though was the amount of stubble visible at least 3 days worth. The man had no

recollection of even coming to this room, let alone having been here for more than a few hours. That’s when it hit

him. He didn’t remember much at all. He reached into the pits of his mind, trying to drag out even the most

superfluous details. Nothing. Not even a date. He made his way to the table, his joints groaning from the

movement, whether from over or under use the man couldn’t say. The rightmost drawer opened easily enough,

revealing a note. After close scrutinization he determined the note to befit the work of either . It read: “My

sanctum, my home. Ye come, I go. Divinity’s blessing, upon us all. Beware, take stock, heed my thoughts, away,

away we go. Learn not what passes, yet to all be keen. My heart, for all within, bleeds.”

title: Sleep Yet

question: What is the story's main event?

answer: A man wakes up in a room and can't remember any details of how he got there.

question: Why doesn't the man remember coming to this room?

answer: He doesn't know because he can't remember much of anything.

question: Does the story have a resolution?

answer: There does not appear to be a resolution.

question: Does the man have anyone to communicate with?

answer: That information can't be found.

question: Write a ~3 sentence summary.

answer: A man wakes up in a room and can't remember any details of how he got there or how long he's been there. He has light injuries and stubble that indicates 3 days of growth. His only clue is a note he finds in a drawer.


text:
	I guess I’ll open my eyes now, where’s my phone? It’s one o clock. Another day already wasted. A text from mom, I’ll check it later. I’ve got a few hours until work so maybe I’ll get some writing done today. Two, get ready, take a shower, shave. Three to four, eat. So I’ve got that long. Reddit. What’s on Reddit. Still on the game subreddit from last night. Eight posts I haven’t seen yet. That’s exciting. All seen now. Next page. Two links. Looking good. This video is nine minutes long though. Another time. How about the Front Page.
	Oh wow. Only seen four of these links. New releases, politics, kittens. Cool. Looking good. All seen now. Next page. Five links not seen, nice. Third page. Fourth. Fifth, okay this is still the stuff from three o clock last night. Facebook.
	Babies, breakfasts, advertisements. Look how happy everyone is. Maybe I’ll post something today. I don’t think I have anything interesting to say. I don’t have anything interesting to say.
	That’s funny. Like. Gross, can I downvote? No. This isn’t reddit. I should check reddit.
	A new post. Looking good. Eh a phone call, I’ll check it later. It’s too early to talk. I don’t have anything interesting to say anyway. I don’t have anything interesting to say. Reddit’s boring now. Maybe /r/wtf? Yeah. Gross. I don’t think I saw everything on Facebook though.
	Second page. Third. Yeah, that’s everything. What time is it?
	Two. That’s fine. I’ve got time, don’t need to get up yet. I should check reddit. I didn’t read those articles. Eh, I’ll read one of them. Cool I guess. I wonder what’s on the league subreddit. Just that nine minute video. Eh. Second, third, fifth, eighth page. I’ll check new. Wow, these suck. Mine wouldn’t suck this bad if I ever submitted. I’m a writer. Well kind of. I’m not a writer until I get something published, remember? Where’s that video. What time is it.
	Two forty-five. That’s fine. I don’t think I need a shower today. I’ll do some writing tomorrow. I should get up though, should eat I think.

	Fridge, cupboard, freezer, pantry. I need groceries.
	Fridge. So many condiments. Why do I still have this gravy? It’s so old. And lime grenadine? That was such a bad idea. Should really clean this out. Should clean my apartment too. There’s that picture that’s been sitting on the floor since we moved in. I’ll be productive tomorrow. I’ll do something tomorrow. Already wasted today. I bet I missed something in the freezer.
	Nope, just alcohol, ice, and alcohol. Thought I had ice cream. I’ll put it on the list. The cupboard had some creamy pasta I think. This looks good. I don’t want to wait ten minutes though. I’ll check the pantry again, maybe there’s some cereal I missed. Pancake mix. Don’t like pancakes. Sauce, syrup, plastic bags. Do have some of that bad cereal though. I guess I’ll finish it off.
	Well I should have checked the fridge before pouring that bowl of cereal, out of milk. I’ll put it on the list. Need paper for it. Eh, I’ll remember until tomorrow the list. No sense pouring the cereal back into the box though, wow this garbage is-really--full. That should make it okay until tomorrow. I wish I had more time so that I could write. Those ideas, I bet I could be famous. I’ll start as soon as I had time.
	I wonder if I could get off tonight. That way I’d have time. I need the money though, if it’s offered though I’ll take it.

	Well, got the night off. Time to celebrate! I can’t just not do anything with this time. No, I was going to write.

	I cannot concentrate. I’ll move into my game room. Get stuff done there, just not turn on my main computer. Music, music will help. Still nothing. I’ll take a break. See who is online. Oh cool one of my friends is playing a game. I’ll just spectate it.
	Man what a tough loss. I can play one game with him I guess. It sucks playing alone anyway and we work well together. Good game, I ought to try out that champion, I’ll pick her up and try a few bot games. I’ll get back on later. Check out some guides in the mean time. What time is it? Seven thirty. Still day light, looking good. I wonder what’s on reddit? Hey one new post that’s cool. I didn’t eat earlier.
	Wish I had milk for this oatmeal. Oh well, I’ll put it on the list. Still nothing on reddit. Facebook? Couple new things that’s cool. I wonder if there’s any new info on the games coming out. Nope. Seen it all already. A bit of speculation though. I don’t know, that wasn’t well put together. Why even try if you’re going to sound stupid?
	Netflix. What do I feel like. Not really a movie. I don’t have two hours. Seen all these shows. Seen all these shows, seen all these shows. I guess I’ll start the office again.

	What time is it? Nine. That’s a great show though. Those writers know what they’re doing. I could be that. I’m hungry. And bored.
	Reddit, facebook, reddit, fridge, pantry, cupboard, fridge, facebook, Netflix. Subreddit, subreddit.
	Nothing good.
	Guess I’ll play some more games.

	What time is it? Three? I should go to bed. Eight more pages of reddit. Three more of facebook. No new information on games. All seen now. What time is it? Three forty. Guess I ruined tomorrow already. Not looking good. Oh yeah, my friend called and that text. Totally forgot. Well I’ll get back to them when I have something interesting to say. I don’t have anything interesting to say.

title: [NF] a day in the life

question: Summarize the narrator's interactions with social media.

answer: The narrator browses Reddit. They view the eight posts they haven't seen. Then they check the front page and click on all the links they haven't seen. Afterwards, they check Facebook. They like a funny post. Then they check Reddit again. They visit Reddit and Facebook again later in the day. Their life is a cycle of a limited number of activities that include browsing Reddit and Facebook.

question: Summarize everything related to food.

answer: The narrator plans to eat from three o'clock to four o'clock. People post pictures of their breakfasts on Facebook. The narrator checks their fridge and finds an abundance of condiments. The cupboard has some creamy pasta, but the narrator doesn't want to wait ten minutes. In their pantry, they find pancake mix, sauce, syrup, and a bit of cereal. Later, the narrator eats oatmeal and wishes they had milk for it.

question: What does the story say about what the narrator posts on Reddit?


text:
SADIYAH (;[1] [2][3]) is a town in Diyala Governorate, Iraq. It is located near the Diyala River 8 km south of Jalawla.[4] The town is populated by Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens. It is disputed[5] and experienced significant Arabization during the Saddam era.[6]

Sadiyah is controlled by Badr Organization.[7]

History

Sadiyah has been the center town of Sadiyah Sub-District since the Ottoman era.[8] Sadiyah was used as winter pasture by the Kurdish Kalhor and Sanjâbi tribes who would pay pasturage dues to the Ottomans.[9] As part of the revolt of 1920, Sadiyah fell on 14 August 1920 largely due to the work of the Kurdish Dilo tribe.[10]

Kurds constituted 50% of the town in the 1947 census[11] and 40.5% in 1957.[12] Arabs constituted 47.1% of the population in 1957, while Iraqi Turkmens were 12.4%.[13] In the 1965 census, Arabs were the majority with 58.4% while Kurds constituted 24.7% and Turkmens were 9.6%.[14] In the 1977 census, the Arab population increased to 90.2%, while Kurds and Turkmens were 5.1% and 4% respectively.[15] In 1987, Arabs were 87.8% of the population, Kurds were 16.8% and Turkmens were 5.4%,[16] while the numbers were 83.1%, 9.9% and 7% for Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens, respectively in 1997.[17] More recent estimates state that Kurds constituted 38% in 2003 and 12% in 2012.[18]

After the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Kurdistan Region pressured Arab settlers in Khanaqin to settle in Sadiyah which increased the Arab population further.[19] Peshmerga was deployed to the town in 2011 after request from the federal government in Baghdad to counter the attacks on the local Kurds.[20] The dire security after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, forced more Kurds to leave the town.[21][22]

ISIS and aftermath

In the early hours of 13 June, ISIS seized Sadiyah, after Iraqi security forces had abandoned their posts. Several villages around the Hamrin Mountains were also captured.[23][24] Sadiyah was captured by the Popular Mobilization Forces in November 2014.[25] As of 2018, 80% of the Kurdish population have not returned to the town.[26]

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[23] Insurgents take two more Iraqi towns, Obama threatens air strikes

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title: Sadiyah

question: What is Sadiyah?

answer: It is a town near the Diyala River 8 km south of Jalawla, in Diyala Governorate, Iraq.

question: Summarize everything relating to Sadiyah's history during the Ottoman era.

answer: It had been the center town of the Sadiyah Sub-District since the Ottoman era and used as winter pasture by the Kurdish Kalhor and Sanjâbi tribes who would pay pasturage dues to the Ottomans. Sadiyah fell during the revolt of 1920, largely due to the Kurdish Dilo tribe.

question: What ethnic groups are in Sadiyah?

answer: Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmens.

question: What happened to Sadiyah after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003?

answer: The Arab population in Sadiyah increased further, forcing more Kurds to leave. The Peshmerga had to be deployed to the town in 2011 to stop attacks on local Kurds.

question: Write a ~6 sentence summary.

answer: Sadiyah is a town near the Diyala River 8 km south of Jalawla, in Diyala Governorate, Iraq. The revolt of 1920 ended Ottoman rule in the area, thanks to the Kurdish Dilo tribe. Sadiyah's ethnic groups include Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmens, although the populations of Kurds and Turkmens have drastically decreased due to the rapid Arabization of the town during Saddam Hussein's reign. Now, a majority of the population in Sadiyah are Arabs. When Saddam fell in 2003, more Arabs moved in, forcing more Kurds to move out. The Peshmerga had to be deployed to protect the remaining Kurds from attack.