Hey! So our class is reading a book called Atomic Habits and this is my learning intention post on it.

So far in our Atomic Habits project, I’ve learned how much small consistent actions can really shape who you become. One quote that really stood out to me is “you do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems”. The way I think about it is, if I want to be early for school, I have to set my alarm for earlier or it will be the same as every other morning.

Some habits I’ve been working on are: focusing more during class, getting my work done in time, studying ahead of time before a test and showing up to class on time. I’ve also want to drink more water every day and get more sleep on school nights. If I could get all this together, my life would be pretty good, but I mean no ones perfect so one step at a time.

Looking ahead, my learning intention for this project is to learn more about how to create and stick to healthy habits  and understand  what the first steps are when trying to build good habits. I want to learn more about what helps people stay consistent and what might cause habits to fail. By improving 1% very day, I think I can take more responsibly for my learning and my choices, strengthen my habits and create a balance in my life. I know that building strong habits now, will help me reach my goals later and become the best version of myself.

Thanks for reading! Have a great rest of your night!

I really hope this is the last post on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens🙏😭💔🥀

I guess this one is all about “Sharpening the Saw”

What is sharpening the saw?

“Give me 6 hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first 4 sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln

You’ve got 4 sections in your life. Physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional/social. Sharpening the saw is basically self care. When I hear “self care” I think of listening to music while I take an everything shower, redo my nail polish, face masks, etc. But no. There is more to self care than that. If I didn’t take care of myself, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. I dunno if it’s just me, but somehow there is always time for me to do some self care.

Different types of self care.

As you probably already know, there are so many ways you can preform self care. I will give you some of the things that I do.

• runs
• Everything showers
• Nighttime walks
• Journaling
• Reading (by choice)

Let me tell you I do way more. But those are just some examples you might relate to.

Physical

Being active is really good for you and should be a priority in your life.

• Exercising daily
• Balanced diet
• Full sleep

You should set aside some time in your day to do so.

Spiritual

“When you connect with your inner self, you’ll find peace in every storm” -unknown

This one is kinda hard to explain. But some ways you can keep your spirit in shape are:

• pray
• Go to church
• Journal
• Spending time in nature

Social/emotional

This one is kinda self explanatory. Here are some examples of sharpening your social saw:

• Going out with a friend
• Visiting a loved one
• Joining a sports team
• Family dinner

And emotional:

• Meditation
• Practicing breathing exercises
• Journaling (again)

I think journaling is actually really good for you. Storytime: Whenever I feel like I’ve had a day with too much drama, I will whip out the journal. Let me tell you a little story… id say since the end of grade 7, is when I started journaling. About a year ago, I had this “online boyfriend” which my parents knew wasn’t good for me because it badly affected my mood and energy. They told me that I had to block him and remove him as a follower. Obviously cuz I was in grade 8 I didnt know how to feel, so that night I wrote it down in my journal. The end. I dont know why that is the example I used, but it is SO funny looking back on the journals from last year. Omg some of them are like “its 11:30pm now and I have to wake up at 5am to go to whistler with Kiersten and my dad” and then others are like “I cant believe she would say that she is such a b*tch”. Long story short, I still journal.

Finding the time

So many people are really busy! (Including myself). But it should be a priory to find time to unwind and “sharpen the saw💪” (g-g-g-ggg-get outtt). Anyways, always make sure to find time for yourself and to sharpen that saw of yours.

Check out this youtube short that my group and I made.

“You cant pour from an empty cup”

Cheers, Carmyn🦩

Now were onto the next post on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens. We read habits 4, 5, and 6.

Habit 4: think win-win

Thinking win-win means finding a solution that works for everyone involved, where all parties benefit and feel satisfied. It’s about collaborating and finding a mutually beneficial outcome, rather than one person winning and another losing.

Habit 5: seek first to understand, then be understood

What it means is that you should try putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, so you can view the world the same way they do. For example, you’re in a team meeting, and someone suggests a new idea. The idea might seem stupid, but instead of saying “that’s a stupid idea” you can ask them to elaborate and work something out.

Habit 6: synergize

Synergizing is working together to create something better. What this reminds me of is volleyball. There’s an outside hitter, opposite hitter, setter, middle blocker, libero, and defensive specialist. If the ball gets passed to a setter, what good is a setter without a hitter.

2nd YouTube short

We were in the same groups as before, Madeline Gemma and I😼. I edited this one. It has to be a serious but my editing is good for nothing if it’s not funny. But it’s ok. Take a look 👀:

Thank you for reading. Hopefully you remembered something about this and have a good day!

I guess there’s another blog to write #boringahh #provincials. So you know what DI is, I’m not saying it again just look at my other post.

So this competition was basically to revise whatever went wrong in our last performance. Last time we only had 1 fishing rod and since we didn’t “build” it which we did but whatever, we had to change it. This time Elsa and I gathered 2 sticks and widdled them so they were smooth. Thennnn Elsa took a drill and drilled a hole in the top the sticks. We put string through the holes and put a hook on the string. It’s a done deal. Now we have 2 “fishing rods”. This made it faster for our stacks of blocks to be built up and less stressful for the people building it.

The next thing we changed was that Nate is now in our script (the narrator). Which thank God Elsa edited the day after the first performance!

Instant challenge

I’m not supposed to say anything. But I will tell you that it was so crappy. Like it was not a blast but we did well…. We could’ve done better improvising but we did well.

if you want more info check out my DI blog post part 1!

Welcome to one of my 3 posts.

Wondering what these 3 posts will be about? They’re going to be about Sean Covey’s book called The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens.

Our class has to read the entire book. Yes, it’s about good habits and ways of life.

1. Be proactive
2. Begin with the end in mind
3. Put first things first
4. Think win-win
5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood
6. Synergize
7. Sharpen the saw (what the helly)

This post is only meant to be about the first 3 habits. So here we go.

1. Be proactive

The definition of proactive is “taking charge and making things happen instead of waiting for others to do it or waiting for things to happen to you”. For example, having extra glue gun sticks before a big project or planning ahead for a trip. If you aren’t proactive, you’re probably reactive. Reactive is the opposite if you haven’t already figured that out.

2. Begin with the end in mind

Everyone has a different example of what this could mean. For me, I think of running. When you go for a run it’s all fun and games until you get a cramp. But you have to keep on pushing till your home because this is what you committed yourself to doing. Now that when you get closer to home, you can think about watching Netflix and eating cookies (the end). It also puts you into a good mindset of not giving up.

3. Put first things first

If you don’t already get an idea of what this one is about, I will explain it for you. Let’s think of 3 things… homework….going to a friend’s house….and the dishes. Obviously the first thing to do would be your homework. Then you would do the dishes, then go over to a friends house. No one will be washing the dishes for you. And what’s also important is putting YOURSELF first before others.

Paradigms

It’s not pronounced “para- dig ‘em”. Try saying “pear-e-dim”. Yes, it got me too. A paradigm is the way you view or think of something. Let’s say the Canucks hockey team. You might love that team and watch all of their games. But your friend might dislike that team that think they suck.

Being principle centred

Being principle centred means making choices based on good rules, rather than just following rules without understanding why. Mainly about doing what’s right because it’s the right thing to do, even when no one’s watching.

YouTube shorts #1

Guess what… we got to choose our groups!! I chose to be with Madeline and Gemma. This is lowkey the tuffest group out of all of them (This group holds the most aura).

Conclusion

I really enjoyed making the video, not so much reading the book. But thats ok because there’s still 2 more posts to go! I’ll see you in the next posts!

Driving question:

How can we, as writers, weave historical details into our creative storytelling to coney a clear and impactful message?

The Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution is probably the main concept in this project. We started off the project by watching an hour long video of a guy walking around France explaining all the things of the Industrial Revolution that you’d need to know. We had to know all about it since it was apart of all our upcoming projects!

The Urbanization Game

We had 15 minutes to draw a town full of rivers, canals, houses, grave yards, factories, mines and much more. With each day, we would have to add more and more with less and less time. We were working in random groups so it definitely made the job much easier.

Hero’s Journey

I would say this one was the hardest to do and work on. It was a story of your character. The story was split up into different sections but it couldn’t be choppy.

Storyboard

After our hero’s journey, we had to do a storyboard. It was basically planning out some of our video in clip snippets. So it was just an idea of a scene we wanted to film.

Making the Frankenstuffies

So we were to bring in 2-3 stuffies that we had to rip apart and sew pieces back together to make an abstract animal. It was kinda sad taking the stuffies apart but I enjoyed sewing them back together. These stuffies were used as our main character of our story. I named my stuffie Steph.

Filming the Movie

How did we film it? Good question. We used strings and a green screen. I tied strings on Steph, and filmed clips of him moving on a green screen. We imported these videos that we took, to iMovie. From there, we would remove the green background, and replace it with an image that matches the story and ties into the Industrial Revolution. Here is my final video. Steph and I are very proud of it.

I am very proud of the final result, although it took very many steps to get to. I learned a lot about the Industrial Revolution, and more about iMovie. I also learned something about myself too: I like writing stories! Omg that was so cringe…

Anyways, thanks for making it to the end. There are more blogs to come.

It’s that time of the year again… DI

What does DI stand for? Obviously you’d know if you were in PLP, but if you aren’t, it stands for Destination Imagination.

Let me just tell you how it goes, you’d get about 3 months to create an 8 minute script with a whole bunch of props in a group. You present it in front of judges. Think of it like a game, your presentation earns you points, and you need the most points to win. You can also get more points by doing an instant challenge. Now, what is an instant challenge? Fine, I’ll tell you I guess. You and your group get pulled into a room and get assigned a challenge. But they don’t warn you about what you will be doing until the time comes. It could be improv, building a structure or something else I guess 🤷‍♀️. During the instant challenge, you get points for teamwork, collaboration and your final product or presentation. We can’t really talk about it for some reason but I will tell you some so you can get some more context. So this past DI, my group had to build a structure with limited materials that we could build it with. Don’t tell anyone I told you. And if you happen to be one of the DI judges or something, I will read you a full book of Pinkalicious🎀 if you don’t tell anyone I told you. I actually have a full collection of Pinkalicious books. But anyways, so your points get added up, and whoever wins gets a little ribbon that you will probably lose or throw out.

Group

So my group has 6 people in it. Me ofc, Ben, Elsa, Nate, Liam, and Lukas. It’s kinda weird because Elsa and I are the only ones in grade 9. So we are with 4 boys. Teenage boys to be exact 🤓☝️

We decided on the name Block Busters. Kinda based off BlockBlast! But also since for our presentation we built a tower.

Our story

So our story is kinda based of Toy Story 3. Here is our script:

Nate wasn’t able to make it to the first DI day, but he can make it to the next (there’s 2 days in total)

Overall

Hmmmm. I would say our group definitely wasn’t prepared. We kinda improvised half of our presentation. But guys, I am still very proud of us. I just wish it wasn’t sunny out that day of, because I would’ve way rathered skiing instead of stupid DI. At least it got me social. I’ve been kinda, yk, quiet, ever since I got onto the last few episodes of Gossip Girl. Im not ready to watch the last one yet because I just know there will be a lot of tears. But anyways, I had to social with people for 8 hours or something. I might’ve showed up in my pjs, bonnet and iced coffee. My mom told me that I looked homeless lmao.

Our group could use a little bit more communication at times, but thats it.

Thanks for reading this far!

Xoxo

Carmyn 💋

🦩If it’s still on your mind, its worth taking the risk🦩