Category: Humanities

This Week I Learned (Week 3)


QUARANTINING

This week for my This Week I Learned post I thought I would cover the topic of quarantining. Something that ties in quite well with our lives today. By quarantining I mean “to impose isolation on a person, animal, or place.” This is very clearly exemplified by the US and the security council of the UN, in our 1950’s research. The USA hated communists. Communists opposed the ideals that the US government strongly in, one of the main ideals is that communists believe more in the “whole” instead of the “individual.”

People are also ranked on what they can contribute to the whole as well. The US government at this point put all its belief on the individual, each person had their own rights and were free to do as they pleased, as well as treated and dealt with as a singular person. So the US really felt negatively towards any communist based country, because of this opposition of belief, this leads to the quarantining that I was talking about.

The USA began to eliminate communist based rulers with the Truman Doctrine. The Truman Doctrine was a doctrine that stated that the United States would provide financial aid and military support to any country struggling against a communist power. This was the USA’s way of quarantining the communist powers, they would completely isolate any countries that believed in communism by bringing other counties up who believed in the same power. 

Macbeth quarantines something in his story as well by removing anyone who questioned how he came to power, and his immense amount of “luck”. He quarantined this rivalling belief. He did this by killing anyone who could question him.

The first example of this is when Macbeth killed the guards, these guards could give insight into the murderer, but Macbeth silenced them before the truth could be heard. Another example of quarantining is when Macbeth ordered murderers to kill Banquo. Banquo was killed because he began to question Macbeth’s story. (Another reason Banquo was killed was because the witches had told him that his sons would become kings, which means that Macbeth’s line will end with him. But for the reasons of this post I will stick with the previous explanation.) Macbeth was scared of someone outing his treasonous crimes, so he quarantined the truth. Much like the United States quarantining communism, Macbeth began to eliminate this rivalling power. 

EXTENSION

To expand my knowledge this week I decided to bring this connection to today, and have a huge connection through quarantining.

In very recent news the outbreak of the coronavirus has taken the world by shock. With over 810 deaths reported by Sunday February 9th, surpassing the death toll of the SARS outbreak of 2003. This epidemic ties more into the literal term of quarantining. In China they have create many quarantines to keep the sick away from affecting others.

Many quarantine quarters are set up in Wuhan, they have separate areas for the diagnosed with severe symptoms, and for the diagnosed with minimal symptoms. Many community centers have been turned into quarantine areas, as well as the Chinese government created 2 hospitals to hold an estimated 2,600 more people showing symptoms.

This form of quarantining is like Macbeths quarantining, or the US government’s. It show slight difference because it is such a literal form, but in every other way it is similar. The Chinese government has confined the virus by confining the carrier. Much alike Macbeth confining the truth, or the US government trying to confine communism.

To further my learning for this post I decided to interview my father about Coronavirus to see his perspective! Here’s the link to the podcast!

https://soundcloud.com/user-335030245/coronavirus-slightly-explained

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This Week I Learned (Week 2)

MACBETH

AND BABY BOOMERS

1950’s and Today

I have been taking notes in class to understand post war America, and what really when down in the 50’s. This week while Ms Willemse was giving us the rundown of boomers, something really stood out to me. The fact that for the first time ever people began to market things to the kids, because of the booming economy, and booming generation, company’s were able to make things look really attractive to the kids, instead of their parents.

Most company’s focused all their marketing attention towards baby boomers because they enlarged the economy, and had the most to spend. Many company’s still provide specific marketing towards boomers, even though they are 55-75 years old now. Companies do this because boomers even though old, still support most of the economy. On average many boomers buy plenty of things that are not of importance, and purchase many things for grandkids, and family members. They also purchase things that bring them positions of power if they can, super cars, big houses, spa retreats, fancy clothing, and lots of jewelry. Many of these purchases would be brought to a minimum if marketers slowed the output of boomer oriented products, this is where I can tie it into Macbeth. I was very interested in the way that Macbeth is manipulated in Act 1 Scene 7, and used that information for my TWIL last week, and for this week I would like to use the same information, but shape it towards a different concept. 

Macbeth

When Lady Macbeth manipulates Macbeth, she’s really just changing her marketing solution. She making the murder look more appetizing to Macbeth, so that he thinks he has no other option, which really is what good marketing’s all about.

You have to sell your product so that people believe that nothing else will do the same job, or do a better job. Lady Macbeth does an excellent job at marketing to Macbeth, which makes the audience believe that this wasn’t her first rodeo, but it doesn’t end here. 

In Act 3 scene 1, Macbeth uses this power to his benefit. He has hired 2 murderers to kill Banquo and his son, but he doesn’t want the blood traced souly back to him with no reason, so he convinces the murderers that Banquo is this terrible person that deserves to die, and by the end of his marketing, he has them sold.

In this scene Macbeth uses Lady Macbeths tactic of selling to the audience to achieve a reason for killing Banquo. 

I decided to express this connection between marketing to baby boomers and the killing of Duncan and Banquo through the creation of an add!

This is an example of an add that originates from the 1950’s era. I decided to use this add as the template for my add!

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This Week I Learned (Week 1)

Macbeth and the Berlin Wall

PLP 11 took their first lecture this week, with head held high as information was dumped upon them, and their fingers scrambled to clean it up.  Learning about the war is a challenge especially since so much information about dates and events are being thrown up in the air, it is literally a scramble to catch it all. Though this post is made to connect things I learned about WW2 and Macbeth, which I have yet to mention. We are also learning about Macbeth in this unit. Hot off finishing act one, I am ready to make some connections when one hits me right between the eyes. In Macbeth, (spoiler alert) king Duncan is the subject to killing. Thane of glamis and cawdor, Macbeth is told he is going to be king by 3 witches. Macbeth believes these witches with prompting from his very masculine wife, lady Macbeth, and they begin to plot. King Duncan is only killed for his title. For the fact that if dead the title would go to Macbeth, I assume. This made a connection to the Berlin Wall, a funny and questionable relation, I agree but hear me out. 

Berlin Wall

When the allies became the “victors” of WW2, they obtained Germany and “nurtured” it back into the economic state it needed to be in, Instead of just turning their back on it.

Though they second the allies were conquering land the Russians came soaring into Germany on a direct course to Berlin. They wanted Berlin for the title, and the power obtained with it. The allies close behind, but just not fast enough then lost all hope at obtaining the full power of Berlin forever. They split the title and power, and became power hungry, and enemies. 

Macbeth

This connection ties the fact that lady Macbeth talks Macbeth into murdering king Duncan for the title, as the allies and Russia are talked into splitting the power, just for the title.

This feeling of nothing being better then you are, or no one being higher then you are, lead both of these situations right into the dirt. Because the allies couldn’t let go of Berlin and the fact that the Russians would have soul occupation of it, partially lead to the Cold War, and becuase Macbeth is told that the only way to be manly, or the only way to be strong is to kill the king, he is walking right into his own death – because that’s what they think the better person would do. 

Today

It’s funny when you think about the role that society, and it’s norms play on our decions and you can see in this example clear as day that these situations would not have happened would either of them thought it manly or strong to back down. You can see this throughout time.

When your masculinity becomes something of question its a fight to get it back. Take for instance my brother, my dad and I biking up Mt. Seymour. I harassed them to continue biking, but they only listened because they didn’t want to be the lesser biker. They didn’t want anyone being better then them! Of course no hard feelings, and I barely even noticed it, but its just something to think about!

I choose to express my further knowledge in this topic in the form of a timeline of masculinity! Enjoy!

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The Beat Goes On… In A Galaxy Far Far Away

(Wow, I apologize Ms. Maxwell. I only see the word play in that sentence now, after the tidal wave has passed, definitely my bad.) 

 

To revisit the title, THE BEAT GOES ON, we carried it. It being the beat. We also created it, if we are keeping score, as well as writing it and giving it an environment. We nurtured our premature knowledge of beat poetry, growth and development came almost immediately. We were fuel’d to answer our driving question which was “How can we use poetry to reflect our perspectives on people, places, issues and beliefs?” This question led us to our first step of the project. Our research started where every good PLP project starts. A chart, more explicitly, a table, expressing what WE KNOW, what we NEED TO KNOW, and QUESTIONS that we have.  This table definitely helps us to understand what our project is going to consist of, and where we should be directing our creativity. During this table, we came across many questions, because the introduction of this project was also the introduction of this concept, which pardon me for not mentioning earlier, is BEAT POETRY.

The art of informal and free poetry. The term beat poetry was coined by the beat poets of the Beat Generation. They had been beat down by the government and society and decided to express their feelings through prose, and more non conventional modes of poetry. They had many coded poems that we began to uncypher piece by piece, adding in our own interpretations to create a personal connection to the themes as well as the underlying meaning.

One of the poems that we looked over was “A Supermarket In California,” by Allen Ginsberg, one of the founding members of the beat poetry movement. This poem opened my eyes. It did not carry a rigid line structure, nor did it follow a repetition of vowels. It was a poem because he said it was a poem. All of a sudden I was hooked, not only hooked, I was mind blown. It was not childish as the poems I remembered reading on the shag carpet, during reading, before writing and after nap time. It was exquisite. No precise meaning, every single person interpreted it differently. His skill was putting pictures, moments and feelings into words. The poem could have been written in 10 mins or worked to perfection. He was not constrained by conformity, he had shown what he could do, and he had done it quite well. I began writing immediately, knowing now that the poems I wrote did not have to regurgitate the 7,5,7 line format that I had ever so pleasantly drilled into my head, nor the same sounding ending that never seemed to come freely to me. I was finally able to accept poetry, and let myself create pieces that meant more to me then anything that I had ever written before. It was a strange concept, claiming that this compilation of words was a prose poem. 

Here is the solid part of the final project, the collection of my poems.

I spoke briefly above about Allen Ginsberg, one of the founders of beat poetry, but I would like to introduce you reader to another face that gets tied to the generation, Gregory Corso. For class we had to choose a poet and research them and their connection to the Beat Generation, and Corso was my poet.

This was another way my mind expanded during this project. This man is a living legend. Gregory Corso is a surviver, but context is lost because I have yet to tell you his struggles. If you would like to further your education on Corso I made a podcast about his life story, its only 5 mins long, and sums up all of the important events in his life. It was hard to fit them all in 5 mins. Gregory Corso opened my mind to more unique forms of poetry as well, so I found the research that I had to do, quite fun and entertaining and if you decide to listen to the podcast I’d hope you find the same excitement.

https://soundcloud.com/user-335030245/the-story-of-gregory-corso

Now what Corso discussed in his poems was extremely effected by his upbringing. His poetry tended to carry many more topics that I could barely even mention in my poems. I find that this is because I do not share certain life experiences that are required to express certain emotions. I lack the need to keep yourself alive, fending for your self, and never knowing where your going to lay your head the next night. Emotions that derive from the city being your home and not being raised in a generic family setting. I don’t know how that would have worked for Corso ( had that ever been an option) but certain things effect certain people, and so my poems do not focus on these things that I dont have connections to, instead they focus on these things that corso missed. Its not that one is better then the other, (Corso is far better,) but in discussing topics if you as a poet can turn yarn into gold, you’ve accomplished great things, just as Corso did.

To wrap up our unit we (my class) were a participant in the PLP Star Wars exhibition in late December. We preformed Beat Poetry in front of family’s and friends, in a student created cantina, made to resemble the cantina in Star Wars. We had our band students playing a set in the intermission, as well as drinks na food being served. The lighting was low, and our own Emily Jansen had created a script to express the fact that every new-commer to the “cantina” was sent from the empire, and being form the empire no one really liked you, so you had to stay quiet, which was a creative and exciting way to keep people quiet.

Here’s the video of me performing!

Reflection

This project gave me a glimpse at a new form of expression that I really hope to continue into my life. I think that poetry is a very special expressive form and that I was very lucky to be introduced to it at such a young age. I found the presentation nerve raking, and scary because I was presenting very personal poems to an audience. So I believe that I have grown quite a bit throughout this project.

I also had a woman come up to me who told me my poem had really resonated with her, she was almost in tears during our conversation. Why would I give up on something that resonates with so many people? 

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Cracking the lord of the flies code

Pleasantly surprised would be a good way to describe this book. I am used to reading books for school that I am not so fond of, or books that I wouldn’t pick if I had the choice. But lord of the flies is different. I feel as if I would read this book in my free time had someone come along and told me about all the underground meaning, all the ties to society, and the story that was told but yet untold. I feel like I over analyze everything now because of this book. I’ll see a movie and wonder if the way that the character said that line refers to the oppression of their innocence, or I’ll just be reading and each line could mean something completely different then what’s on the page. Anyways let me tell you about the project that just came and went focussing on lord of the flies.

Our driving question for this unit was “What is the role of tribalism in society?” We were looking into tribes all around us. Tribes like family, and friends, sports teams and sports fans. Almost everything can be classified as a tribe. Which we learned throughout this project. We made connections to everyday things as well as to the very well known tribes, such as cults, or gangs, in our final project. Throughout this blog post I will go through the steps of the project piece by piece!

Journal entries 

To show our understanding in this project we started by writing. We wrote journal entries. These journal entries had topics like:

  • What makes a great leader? What present day examples can you include? How do you see Lord of the Flies as an example (or not)?
  • Are all children violent? Adults? What causes or doesn’t cause it? How do you see Lord of the Flies as an example (or not)?
  • How is power and control a part of tribes? How does Lord of the Flies show this

As you can tell these journal entries do not all focus directly on lord of the flies, its mostly just how does lord of the flies show this, or can you see lord of the flies as an example, and that because this projects other focus was on tribalism. Not aboriginal tribalism per say, but all tribalism. We wanted to find the connection between a tribe of our choice and lord of the flies through tribalism. My group, (Luca J, Giorgia, and Lucas) decided to do Hells Angels as the tribe of our choice. We were late to deciding and that got us a little bit discombobulated, but we found our way back to being on top of work. After we completed the research, we divided up the tasks so that each member had something to do for our final presentation. In our final presentation we had to use keynote and make a presentation about the tribe of our choice and its connection to lord of the flies. 

Here is my groups video of us presenting!

Presentation Reflection

I felt the presentation went well, and that we completed all the necessary requirements for our presentation. We all worked pretty isolated, and if we had, had an extra day maybe we would have been more comfortable on stage with our work. Though I know I get pretty bad stage fright when I go up, I think that if we had run through it I wouldn’t have had it as bad. Also working with 3 other people is hard, and since we were the largest group the bar was set higher because of it.

Throughout this project we covered quite a few core competencies. Here they are:

  • Reading and Personal Text Response
  • The Writing Process
  • Literary Identification and Analysis 
  • Understanding Language Construction and Intent

I will explain how each of these was used!

For the reading and personal text response this covers all the writing and reading we did. So the reading of lord of the flies counts as part of this, which I did, and I even have proof because I got the book out from the library, just so my eyes wouldn’t hurt at night! Also each of our journal responses fall under this competency. Well not the whole journal response but the thought and plan of the journal response stems from this competency. 

The next competency is The Writing Process. This describes the actual creation of work. Either our journal response, or script creation. It’s the transformation of your personal text response into an actual readable document.

The literary identification and analysis I mainly used while writing my journal responses. I used this when I wanted to prove a point by including a quote or a certain fact that supports my work. It just makes it all the more informational, and people reading it feel like its more educational because of it. 

The last competency we used was understanding language construction and intent. We used this competency while we were reading lord of the flies. We had to adjust our mindset to adapt to the language being used in a book written in the 1950’s. Also we had to figure out meaning beyond the just what the text was telling us, which falls under this competency as well. 

Thanks for reading!

Adlih

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The peoples podcast

In humanities 10 we have been trying to expand our learning by exploring minority groups in Canada, and how different their experiences are, compared to ours. Our driving question for this project was how has the Canadian experience been different for minorities.

 

We covered many different ways to express our learning through this project. We did buckets of research, interviewed people on our minority topics, wrote a essay, and made a podcast. We began our process of creating a podcast (becuase the podcast was the end goal) by sifting out the minority groups that interest us. I chose to do some research on Sikhism, because I was interested to see what the sikh religion is like, and what sikh values are. I also did research on Korean people in Canada, and Buddhism in Canada. When I got placed into my podcast group we chose Sikhism to do our podcast on, and I am very happy that we did! My group consisted of Isy, Daniel and I. The next step was to do research on your topic with your group, and to learn about facts and stories about the topic that will lead to a better understanding when interviewing. The next step, like I said is finding the right people to interview. It wouldn’t make sense if I interviewed a old man who is atheist on sikh religion, would it?! So my group and I found 2 teachers at my school that identify, or identified with the Sikh religion. Ms. Bhangoo identified with the Sikh religion, and Ms. Parmar is a part of the Sikh religion.

 

The interview with Ms. Bhangoo went incredible well, she was a awesome interviewee, and told us many eye opening things about her experience with Sikhism. I was blow away by what she had to say, and only after the interview did I truly understand what Ms. Maxwell wanted us to learn about through this project. 

Ms. Parmar wanted us to meet, and interview someone at her local Gurdwara, who she felt was very educated on the topic of Sikhism. Isy and I ended up skipping gym and driving with Ms. Maxwell to the Gurdwara near the Second Narrows Bridge.

At the Gurdwara we met Puran Singh Gill. Puran has worked at UBC for the majority of his career. He has his masters degree in Studies in the Sikh religion, and is very well educated. Puran really opened our eyes to the more historic and statistic facts about Sikhism.

We had a 40 minute interview with Puran and I personally found it very hard to edit down because everything he said was fascinating, much like Ms. Bhangoo’s. These interviews opened my eyes to the Sikh religion up close and personal. They showed us what it would really be like to be apart of the Sikh religion, and this is just one of the many examples of how PLP has helped me to better understand a topic or subject in school. I really needed to go out and interview people who have had or have ties to the Sikh religion, and I got the chance to. 

After our interviews we split up the parts and began to write a finer script that ties all our points together, because remember this podcast is about the Canadian experience for Sikh people in Canada. Isy, Daniel and I, wrote up our scripts separately, then recorded them on our own and I edited the clips together. We realized soon after completing this edit that it really did not sound very nice when we were all broken up like we were. The second draft brought a while new start to our podcast. We re-recorded the whole thing, we decided to use a bigger mic and record together and break up our lines so the podcast flowed better, we added music, and we added a better introduction to our podcast. The second draft was much better I thought and I was really proud of my work as editor. 

Now while all of this was happening we were also writing a essay. Our essay followed the same sort of path as the podcasts, but it dove into a more personalized tale, that you as a writer could relate to. The question that we, as writers, had to answer was: “How do our positions impact our experiences with literature?”

The position options were things like experiences, gender, race, religion, age, etc. I chose to focus down on family relationships, which sounds a bit narrow, but was really quite vast. I spoke about how the relationships that a person shares with their grandparents, their parents, and their siblings, alters the way they interpret literature. 

Basically what I’m saying is that if you, for example, don’t have a very strong relationship with your grandparents, and you don’t see them often, it may be harder to relate to literature where the grandparent and the grandchild hold a very tight bond. Through this the reader would build a different perspective of the relationship then someone who, for example, saw their grandparents every day. 

Through these 2 projects I have learned a lot. Firstly a lot about the minority groups in Canada, and poorly there have been treated. I learned that Sikh people as a whole are on the terrorist list in Canada. I also learned about the ins and outs of Sikhism and how they project themselves compared to how they are depicted real life. I learned about Chinese culture through Jade Peony, which shared the story of a Chinese family living in Chinatown, Vancouver in the 1930-40’s. I’m also learned about podcast editing and how to create something that people really want to listen to. 

In the end I feel successful in creating a podcast that reflects the knowledge that my group and I gained, and I hope that you enjoy it!

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WW2 Podcasts

https://soundcloud.com/user-335030245/ep-13-jack-purdie

Recently in humanities 10 we have been interviewing WW2 veterans and creating podcasts with their audio. My group and I (Melika and Jamie) went to Shanon Oaks, in Vancouver to interview a man named Jack Purdie who was a trained Tail Gunner in WW2. 

Now our project did not start then though, we had to spend months researching podcasts and listening to different versions and categories to help us to understand what certain podcasts contain. In the end my favorite podcast ended up being  10% Happier with Dan Harris. I strongly recomend you take a listen!

As well as the podcasts we had to listen to we also had to learn about WW2 and what battles were fought there, and what turning points were important for us to remember. We took notes every class as we read about such topics, but we also knew that this information would come in handy once we begun the actual creation of our podcasts because we had to talk to someone about their experience at such time. 

Now talking about the actual creation of the podcast, I wanted to talk about what steps went into the final product. 

  1. We started by picking which WW2 veteran to interview. There was a list of about 5-6 veterans and I decided to pick Jack Purdie, along with Melika and Jamie. After we had picked our veteran we had to do a little background research on the person. Ms. Maxwell wanted us to know a little bit of the story of the person before showing up to interview them. 

2. The next step was a little trickier. We had to send out an email to the veteran or a close family member to tell them that we would like to interview them, and that it was for a school project. 

3. While we waited for a response we started to plan out our podcast, not word for word, because we didn’t have an interview yet, but we got to decide what topics we might be covering and what the main story of our podcast would be. I chose to cover kind of the end and that my podcast would be the last in order out of the group of us. 

4. Once we had a interview date set in stone it was our job to get there. My mom drove my group and I out to the middle of Vancouver and dropped us off. We were at Shanon Oaks an assisted living home in Vancouver. It really was quite a nice place and I was a little jealous! We met up with Jack Purdie and his daughter Colleen, and figured out a quite place to complete our interview. Mr. Purdie had so much to say and it was so incredible to hear what he had to say about the war, Mr. Purdie did not get the chance to fight in the war (which is definitely not a bad thing) but he was trained as a tail gunner. If you want to hear more about his training listen to Jamie’s podcast. 

6. Now once we had completed the interview it was our job to take the 50 minutes of interview and turn it into a 5-7 minute interview focused on a certain topic that helps to show our driving question. 

7. Now I believe that this is the last stage, well this and sending the podcasts out to the people we interviewed. I strongly recommend that you listen to a few of them because the class did an amazing job with them! 

Heres my podcast!

Thanks for reading!

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Pêcha kucha

Before the break the whole of PLP 10, was tasked with the creation of a pêcha kucha per person. The pêcha kucha’s had to answer the driving question, “Why does it take a crazy person to change the world?” Now we had answered this question in our trip to Seattle, our Seattle videos, in our mini pêcha kucha’s, and our essays. But I believe I only truly understood the answer I was giving and the question itself, when I presented my pêcha kucha. Before I go into more detail, I will try to explain what a pêcha cucha is. 

A pêcha kucha is a oral presentation consisting of 20 slides, each on a self timer so they will change after 20 seconds. No script, your photos are your script. The slides are just photos, and they shouldn’t have any text. So it truly is quite simple, until it gets into the script. The script has to flow through the whole presentation (the whole 6 minutes and 40 seconds) It should transition with the images, and at the end of the presentation the audience should know the answer to the driving question. My pêcha kucha is above, and I’ll link some of the others  so you can watch those as well. Here’s Jamie’s, who I though did insanely well, Emily’s, and Jessie’s!

My pecha kucha focused deeply on how if you push your self past the point of becoming successful, and to a further goal only tou can see you will push the world forward.

This is proven through Elon Musks endeavours and his ambition to create a better planet, and to push our civilization onto another, becuase he knows that what the planet has undergone, will catch up with us at some point.

I also talked about our trip (briefly) to Seattle that defiantly shaped the answer I chose for my Pecha Kucha. 4 days and 3 nights in Seattle with my class, spending every day trying to figure out the answer to our driving question. We visited the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Center, we went on the Amazon tour, as well as the Microsoft tour, we also went to the Microsoft garage, and the Seattle Seahawks Satdium, Centry Link Field.

This trip, and the project itself, taught us so much about what it takes to change the world, and why those that are called crazy are the ones who are really pushing our world forward. Through the Pecha Kucha I learned so much about what it takes, and why people change the world. I also feel that I have a deeper understanding of the meaning of the word crazy, while also having a new found urge to become somebody called “crazy” and to push the world forward!

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Am I Crazy?

 

Recently in humanities 10 we have been considering the word Crazy and what it means to be crazy and what comes with it. The driving question for this unit is “Why Does It Take A Crazy Person To Change The World?”

We started this unit with a short discussion about what crazy means to us and what crazy people have done for our world. We were also introduced to the Apple Think Different Campaign, (here’s the link if you want to check it out) the people that Apple decided were crazy in their own way and should represent their company. We were then given the task of picking one person out of the campaign, and creating a Keynote about them.

I chose Ansel Easton Adams. Ansel was crazy because he explored a field that had not been explored by many, and he thought outside the box. He did not want to continue into a job that everyone had tried. He wanted to create his own path. He was driven to push forward a (then known as) hobby into a career. 

He was a very private person, even as a child. He preferred to play with bugs in creeks, then play aggressive sports with other people his age. He began playing piano at a young age and he believed that piano would be his ticket out into the world. He later realized that his hands were to small to become a professional pianist. He could however become a teacher or play for special events but that was not good enough for him. 

His father took him to Yosemite for the first time in 1916, he also bought him his first camera this trip. He became addicted to photography and Yosemite. He came back the next year with a better camera and a tripod. After these trips he really started to realize that he can carry photography to a new level. He picked up a part time job at a photo finishing company in San Francisco, and he began to write for photographic journals around his area. 

He met his wife in Yosemite, her father owned the photo studio in Yosemite, called Best Studios. The studio is now dedicated to Ansel Adams and his footprint. Around this time Ansel was still quite focused on piano, which meant he would take photos when he could. This lead him to dangerous situations and bad weather at Yosemite. 

While taking photographs Ansel would often try using lenses to create different contrasts between the sky and the cliffs. This was a area previously unexplored. Lenses were for those risking a lot, because if you think about it, if you were to use a lens on a photo you would not be able to retake the photo. It was a hard thing to master.

His first portfolio gained him nearly $3,900. People saw his work and suddenly people all over the world were interested. He had an exhibit of his work in the Smithsonian in 1931, and continued to gain praise from here. 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This is the slideshow I presented in class along with all this information. It was in Pecha Kucha format.

My thesis for my keynote was : Ansel Adams perseverance and determination allowed him to show the true power of a photograph. His creativity and advancement challenge the way we interpret and partake in photography today. 

I believe that this thesis works well with the context of Ansel’s story but it think that if I was to redo the thesis I would include information on his challenges and his story of success. 

Hearing about these people taught me a bit about myself. I realized that every one of these people (the apple Think Different campaign people)  advanced our living in someway. I also learned that each of these people held themselves to an expectation. They all felt that it was mandatory to meet these expectations that they hold against themselves. It is weird to think about these people being so determined to create something that satisfies them, that it can literally drive them crazy. 

I really enjoyed this project and can’t wait to see where it takes us next. Also if you have any questions or comments I would love to hear them! This is the link to my rules of commenting page, if you would like to read more. I would love to hear what words come to your mind when you think of the word crazy!

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Frankenstuffies

Hi!
I have recently accomplished the difficult task of completing “Franken stuffies”. Frankenstuffies is a project about the adaption of one animal due to a change in either the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle (I did this one!) the phosphorus cycle, or the water cycle. The project must be in written and video format! I really enjoyed this project and I wanted to share my expierence and my do’s and don’t’s of this project.

Our project began in early October, and everyone was interested and very excited. I personally had never done any big PLP projects ( I only joined this year, ) and so I was pretty nervous. Our first deadline we had to meet was October 4th, by this time we had to have written episodes 1,2, and 3. You might be thinking “ohh, that’s sounds pretty easy,” but let me tell you, when you can not write and you have got no ideas for the project you can’t really call it easy! I was struggling for hours trying to figure it out.

First do and don’t.

Don’t: struggle for hours trying to figure out the best idea and trying to perfect it.

Do: choose an idea and stick with it. It is so much more fun when your idea expands along with your story! You can always go back and tweak a thing or two along the way, and never expect your first product to be perfect!

I finally choose an idea and I started to write. I never really wrote before this project, but I had read a lot and that helped the process of writing go smoother. Franken stuffies was the first time I found writing fun and could not wait to continue! That’s probably why all my episodes were 500 words!

 

We edited the episodes in class and were sent home with a new due date. October the 6th. By then we needed all the 6 episodes to be written and the first three to be edited! No screwing around here! I went home and decided I needed a break from Franken stuffies. Already. We had a long weekend and so I left it to the last moment.

Second do and don’t.

Don’t: leave it to the last minute. If you know you’ve got work then do it. Even if you only do a little here and there it will help.

Do: your work! If you know you are going to be busy then set some time aside and do it then. And if you do forget about your work, and end up remember it last minute, still do it. Don’t make up some lame excuse! Put anything that will bother you away and get straight to it!

The last 3 episodes took a while to write, but I got them done and felt a lot better. I handed them in and edited them only to realize that I had to turn it into a script by Thursday, and it was Wednesday! I did not do my best on the script but I had a copy ready for Thursday. The next due dates passed fairly easily, but remember there is always calm before the storm. The storm hit us around October the 20th. That was when the first draft of the video version was due. I was so anxious and stressed. I had not used my time wisely and was paying for it! I spent my whole Saturday working on filming the video, and cutting and stitching my stuffy. ( which by the way, was a possum. And there are no possum stuffies anywhere!) the next day I showed up with a complete 14 minutes of clips. Someone asked to see the beginning of mine and was shocked when I had 14 minutes. It had turned out that you only needed to have completed the first 3 episodes, not the whole thing! I was angry at my self for spending my Saturday at home filming a possum dancing around the woods.

 

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Third do and don’t.

Don’t: forget to read the due dates and mix them up. There there for a reason!

Do: read the due dates! Also remember that this project is just a small blip in your life and it should not have to take all your energy and all your focus. You have to learn how to balance!

I guess it was a good thing I got the due dates mixed up because I was able to coast the rest of the project. I only hade to edit and add voice overs. Which is still a whole ton of work, but not as much as some of the others had!
The due date for the final project was supposed to be October the 26th, but we ended up tuning it in on November the 1st! Everybody really needed those extra days! Thank you so much Ms. Maxwell!
I had made it through the first big PLP project! I was so happy that I totally forgot about this blog post until the night before.So here I am. I guess I never learned my lesson, but I do hope you learned something from my mistakes!

Thanks for reading!

Adlih

 

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