Well, it’s that time of the year again. Time to reflect on the year so far and figure out what we want to achieve in the next year.

This year has been a year unlike any other. Grade 11 is a year of hard work that’s for sure. Of course of like every school year it has its challenges.

This year I’ve really started to focus more and more on what I want to do post-Secondary and really starting to narrow down my passions and figure out what I enjoy doing, school wise. I’ve began exploring post secondary options as well as figuring out the requirements for the programs I want to go into. This has helped me get more motivated to work hard.

In terms of PLP we have done 2 units so far this year, The Manhattan Project Project and The Carousel of Communism.

My favourite out of the two was defineitly the Carousel of Communism and I am also very proud of what I accomplished and what the class accomplished.

My favourite part of the unit was the night of the exhibition. I enjoyed the problem solving that was involved in the setting up process. I also had a lot of fun playing Mccarthy, it was a unique role to play and it was fun trying to portray him. Highlight was definetly when one of the audience mentioned red jello as evidence and I had to improvise.

Working as a class was also a new thing for me and I think it went very well. I’ve noticed that this year we are all quite close and we all know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and we know how to play off of them. This is good and bad but in the case of this project I felt it helped a lot.

The benefit of such a tight knit class to me is that we constantly play off of each other and push each other to do well. One example is Adam and I in chemistry. We keep on pushing each other to figure out concepts, we work together so we understand it and keep striving for success.

Before that unit we had The Manhattan Project Project. This was the first unit of the year so I was excited to hit the ground running and I felt that I learned a lot. I think the fact that the story of the project was intertwined with WWII was a big help with my motivation and interest in the subject. That helped to fuel my contributions to the project. In Hanford I felt my group worked hard to get as much footage as information as possible and I’m glad we did because what we learned changed our scope of what we wanted our video to include. We learned about the health affects and how those are intertwined with the environmental effects. The one thing I wish I did better was not get sick halfway through the trip, it definetly didn’t help me and I found when I got sick that I was super out of it.

For this project I found I was staying in my comfort zone and not really branching out to try new things. I stuck to reaserch and script creation for the most part and going forward I want to try to try new things or focus on things I haven’t done for a while such as video editing.

Now comes time for my goals for the remainder of the year.

With the new goal setting stuff we are covering in PGP I felt they have helped me start to align what I want to accomplish this year, in school and outside of school.

My biggest take away from the goal setting assignments is the weekly reviews. I’m finding those help me a lot with reflecting on the week and what I want to work on in the next.

I also think the most useful thing I can take away is time blocking. I’m still going through and adding my schedule and working on getting used to looking at my calendar, to be honest I don’t look at calendars very often. It’s a bit of a learning curve for me as I’ve never really used a calendar before so I’m taking it bit by bit to ease into using one. I am still very relient on my white board in my room. I use that for school to-dos and what I need to get done.

Now I have also been working on creating a good balance of work and play nd that can sometimes get out of whack or be pretty equal. My goal is to try to find that balance so I can have fun and not get bogged down and stressed but to also accomplish good quality work in all my classes.

My general goal for the remainder of the year, using time blocking, is to become more focused and driven when I’m doing my work. Have a balance of fun and work but when it is time to work, get down and get it done.

Now for my question. This is mostly for my parents but it can apply to both. Can I enlist your help to keep me on track and remind me to time block, ask about what I have to get down and try to make sure I stay on track with my scheduling.