Unbroken Book Reveiw, Eh

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This past unit in humanities we have been learning about WWII, and we all ended up reading a book related to our unit. We had three choices, Code Name Verity, All the Light We Cannot See and Unbroken. I chose unbroken as I was intrigued by the fact that it is a true story from the Second World War. It was also made obvious that it was a good story as it was made into a movie. Here is my reveiw on it.

Unbroken

This is a spellbinding book that takes the reader on an incredible journey of a battle of wit, endurance and power. The story unfolds following a young Louie Zamperini who is a precocious precocious younger brother who in his mind believes he never measures up to his older brother. Louie is always getting in trouble and having to use his innate natural skills to escape situations. His skills were running away to evade capture. He turns this running skill to refocus his life into ability to run really fast and qualify to compete in the 1936 Olympics.

In the early stages of Louie’s life he figures out that if he stops focusing on negative activities like stealing, and focusing on something positive like long distance running he can become really proficient. You follow Louie as his brother pushes him to become one of the best runners in the country. Soon enough Louie is a celebrity winning races left, right and centre. The story follows Louie breaking records and training for the Olympics at a very young age. Louie does not win gold but he is determined to go to the next Olympics and be more successful. “He didn’t run from something or to something, not for anyone or in spite of anyone; he ran because it was what his body wished to do. The restiveness, the self-consciousness, and the need to oppose disappeared. All he felt was peace.”

As Louie becomes a young adult he is thrust into the centre of the early days of America’s entry into the Second World War in 1941. Then as many young men in their prime he must enter the service of the United States Air Force. What starts as an elite group of Bombers who take to the sky to confront the Japanese as they battle rages in the Pacific War Theatre. This tight knit group after successful missions finds themselves on a rescue mission. Encountering a life alerting situation the surviving bombers find themselves in a very perilous situation testing resolve and survival skills. After days adrift on the ocean with limited food and supplies they must dig deep to stay positive and remain above all hopeful they will be rescued. That their lives will not end.

This journey leads the reader through the difficult weeks before they are rescued. Enduring tests of inner strength they must all remain united over survival. Wind, storms, unrelenting sun and open exposure to dangerous predators of the oceans.  They also had to confront the worst in human nature which is the selfishness of human being in the struggle for survival.

After being crushed by the unrelenting elements of both nature and the sometimes dark corners of human nature, they are then thrust into the next test as they are captured by the enemy. Already their bodies weekend by the basic necessities of life, food and water. The survivors must now dig deep to find the inner strength to push on. Push on and remain hopeful with the will to survive a prison of war camp. These camps are not hospitable. They are austere places with the very basics of food. Rice and rancid rations doled out sparingly. Crude conditions which run rife with disease spreading and only creating once more challenge they must overcome. Work camps test the very sole of these brave soldiers who are humiliated and treated as slaves.

The leader of these camps assigned to rule over the prisoners is not of the calibre of the warriors in the war theater flying the Japanese planes. This anger and resentment makes the prisoners easy targets of the fury and frustration. Compound this with the fact that Louie is recognized as an “Olympian” he becomes the very personal target of a very cruel leader. Louie Zamperini and Camp leader Matsushirio Watanabe go head to head. What ensues is now a battle of wit, will, and strength of the human body and spirit.“Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man’s soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it.”

It is a true story that exemplifies the worst and the best of human beings. By having a positive mindset and spirit can triumph over the darkest of moments in our lives.

DI Provinicals, Eh

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As you can tell by the title of this blog post, it has happened. Yes DI provincials has passed, and I am much happier without this stress on my back. My group and I yet again had to prepare for a tournament, but this time instead of it being at our school it was out in Surrey, BC. I don’t think anybody was excited to drive to Surrey as it is not exactly the closest place to where we live.  If you havent seen my blog post on regionals here it is.

DI Regionals 2018, Eh

My group as you know were doing the improv challenge, and to become better we decided to study our characters better so that each one of us could play any character. What we did is we used flash cards and studied them over spring break, memorizing each characters traits. It was fairly boring as it was the same thing over and over again, but at least it worked to the point where we basically had each flash card ingrained into our brains. That kind of gave me a knew way of studying for the future, as I have never used flash cards to study. After spring break was over we checked each other to see if we all new the characters. Before we did that we noticed that one team member wasn’t there, and they werent there because they got food poisoning while they were in Africa. We eventually found out that she was too week to participate in the tournament, so we now only had a group of 3. We then tried to adjust and adapt to that Idea and tried to think of ways we could do the act without all four people.

The day finally came but, I was sick, so I wasn’t able to go and I had to tell my group members I couldn’t go. They definitely weren’t extactic about it as it is not news they want to hear. I stayed home and didmn’t go but the other two group members went the tournament. We didn’t exactly do well in the standings. We ended up coming 5th out of 5 for improv, which is definitely not what we wanted. However I am very happy we are finally done and don’t have to do it again, I think, you never know I might do it another year. As much stress as it has put on me it has still been a learning experience, as I am a little bit more comfortable with improv but, I still hate it. I also have felt I’ve learned more about team work while doing this even though I didn’t show up for the Provinical tournament. Lastly, I was asked to review an article about Destination Imagination. The article states that people who do DI are more creative and better at problem solving. I sort of agree becuase, generally people who do DI are more creative people. The reason why I say that is because people tend to do things that they are good at. If you are still confused, I have one other way fo saying it, here it is: saying people who do DI are creative and good at problem solving is like saying people who play sports are athletic. Thankfully, I am finally done with DI and hopefully you will never see a blog post with DI in the name again.

Group Memebers: Sydney, Willa, Kyle.

DI Regionals 2018, Eh

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I have talked about Destination Imagination a couple other times, as I have consistently been in the tournament since I was in grade 8. The first thing that comes to mind when I think of DI is stress, mainly because I don’t enjoy it too much as it is essentially a project on steroids. Projects stress me out so naturally one that is one steroids will stress me out more than usual. Although, I am doing it becuase it is good for my growth as a learner and a person and, my teachers are making me do it.

I ended getting put into the last category I could possibly want to be in, which is, improv. I personally hate public speaking to begin with, acting is on a whole other level, then improv is way beyond that just because, you have to think on your feet and create everything in the moment. I always like to have a plan that is quite strict, so if I do public speaking, I will end up making script of some sort on the topic that I have to talk about, and I will read it over constantly. Acting is much worse because you have to change your emotions depending on the script which is adding complexity. With improv, There is not much planning I am able to do, except for practice improv itself. I got so stressed out that before the tournament, I developed a virus that caused my toungue to be inflamed thus causing me to have a lisp. I could only talk like “thith”. I was not able to pronounce my ch’s or my S’s. Everybody was teaseing me as I could barely talk, It got onnoying pretty quickly. I was only praying not to have it on the day of regionals.

Worst case scenario happened, I had the lisp on the day of DI regionals. The past few days leading up to that day I had noticed how often S’s were used in sentences. It came down to our presentation and I had to figure out a way to roll with the lisp. Instead of ignoring it and having it be an obvious onnoying factor in the skit, I decided to turn it into comedy. I ended up being a “ghoth with a lithp”. People thought it was funny as I ended up having to say words like “thubmarine”. It was funny now that I look back on it but during the show it was torture for me. I pushed through it and we ended up doing well, we ended up coming in first place for our age group. We also did well in the instant challenge and we came first in our category.

Chemistry, Eh

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This past unit in science, we have been learning about chemistry. We got to learn about many things, ranging from balancing equations to covalent bonds. I was really interested to learn about chemistry this unit as the job that I would like to do is Chemical Engineering. Obviously you can tell by the name of the job title that it involves chemistry. Anyways that motivated to me to try and learn about chemistry for this unit.

Before this unit I did not know much about chemistry, as I had not been taught much about it until now. I said earlier that we learned about covalent bonds and balancing equations and a lot of other things in between, well at the end of the unit we had to show what we knew about chemistry. This is my mind map.

During the chemistry unit we did a lot of worksheets but, we also had to focus on a project that would be due at the end of the unit. For the project I got paired up with one of my friends Aiden, and we had the task of having to create a video with characters in it creating a chemical reaction. The characters in the video had to be elements like Oxygen, Lithium, etc. The way we started was by picking a chemical reaction then figuring out what the chemical equation was and then making a story about it. However, we also had the option to do a chemical reaction which I regret not doing as I think I would have enjoyed it more. One of my other friends Ryan did the reaction click on eh to see his blog post.

(Insert Video Here)

At the end of the unit I realized that I had kind of struggled through this unit as I don’t feel that I learned as much as I could of. I almost wish that I could do it over again but, that would mean more school and I am not doing that.

“Fun” Math Games, Eh

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This past unit in math, we have been learning about polynomials. There not too hard to understand, but for some reason there are letters which make me wonder if theres going to be numbers in English soon. Anyways, I am going to explain to you how this is linked to a “Fun” Math Game.

In math we learned about three different things, the first was expanding. we basically had to take an equation with letters and numbers and make it look bigger. We then learned about factoring which is the exact opposite of expanding. With factoring you take the product of something that has been expanded and turn it into its original form. We then learned about perfect squares, which brings me to my next topic, algebra tiles. Personally I hate algebra tiles, I don’t know why, I just think it kinda of messes with my head as I would rather just do the equation normally. We ended up doing a lot of worksheets in class for a couple of weeks. After those couple of weeks were over we brought a project into the picture, which was intriguing at first until I found out it had to involve algebra tiles. Im only kidding I don’t care that much about algebra tiles. Anyways the project that we had to do, was make a math game that uses algebra tiles, skill, and chance.

My partner Ryan, and I took a while to figure out what exactly we were going to do. We were thinking of ripping off monopoly, then we realized that wasn’t the best idea. Finally we came up with a fun idea of a math game that I wouldn’t totally mind playing. We ended up thinking of the idea of involving darts into the game. The way we did that was by having the person throw a dart, and whatever number they hit thats how many spaces they move forward or backward on the board. After you throw the dart you go and do a question that includes algebra tiles, if you get right u move forward, if you get it wrong you move backward. The questions will be on cards, and they will be mixed up with factoring and expanding questions. An extra rule is if you identify that something is a perfect square you get to move forward and extra space on the board. After we finished making the game we had to play it and make video.

Of course we weren’t very creative so we called it dart algebra. On the other hand I was very proud of this project as I found it went quite smoothly. Although we did fool around sometimes in class which led to us finishing this video last minute and handing it in late. I am still happy with what Ryan and I produced as I felt it was as “fun” a math game we could make.

Disruption, Eh

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This is now going to be my third and most likely final blog post on California, as I have made to others about my trip to California with my class. I did one about what we did everyday on our trip, and the other I did on High Tech High.  Anyways this next one is about the main reason why we went to California. The main reason why we went there is becuase California has many different examples of Disruption, starting from the San Diego Zoo all the way to Twitter HQ in San Francisco. What I am going to be focusing on is aircraft carriers, as my friend and I did a project on how it has disrupted Naval Warfare. The place that we got our information from was the USS Midway which is in San Diego California. It is now a museum becuase it has become obsolete as it has Diesel engines, and now ships are switching over to nucleur powered engines.

Anyways, I will now give you a background on the midway. The midway was the first aircraft carrier built after WWI, and just to give you an idea of big it is, it holds 4,000 crew 90 planes. It is also 296m long and weighs 45,000 metric tons. It is basically a floating city. It also went through a couple of changes, as instead of having an angled deck like you see in the photo above, it used to have a straight deck. The british came up with the idea to have an angle deck, as it allows the planes to land with less risk, and other planes were able to take off at the same time. After a couple of years the ship had been modified and it was back out on the water. Learning all of this before I went to California made me super intrigued and excited to learn more about while we were on the ship.

After we were came back from California, we had to get prepared for an essay we were going to write on disruption. We spent a week preparing, which sounds like a lot of time, but before you know it, it’s already time to write it. Here is my essay:

The
Historical Disruption
of Technology
Ethan Dennis

    Technology has been in a constant state of disruption that has affected all of our lives in many different ways. It has affected the military throughout WWI and also at the end of WWII. It also has helped people’s causes around the world and it could have helped the hippies rebel more successfully. Rivalries in the tech world have also caused a disruption, as the top tech companies are always competing to make the newest and best thing. The pace of change is going at a faster and faster rate and as a result technology is constantly changing the world.

    In both World Wars planes were a key component in changing how the wars were fought. At the beginning of WWI planes were used to scout their enemy’s, but by the end of the war they were used in dogfights and they had machine guns attached to them. Naval ships could only shoot 15 miles with their large guns, but once aircraft carriers were introduced they were able to hit a target that its hundreds of miles away. When pearl harbour happened it wasn’t as catastrophic as people thought. Although lives were lost, all of the ships that were sunk were now obsolete as the new super power had just been introduced, aircraft carriers.

   In the 60’s the youth were known as hippies and back then they did not have the technology we do today. The hippies were known for rebelling against the government, and established norms, and protesting to large extent, but they did that all by word of mouth. In Little Brother the main character did something similar but, he had technology on his side. He was able to use something called xnet to communicate with people instead of using word of mouth. This was much faster and way more efficient then using word of mouth. If the hippies had something similar to technology they could have been more successful, because they failed without it.

   Apple and Microsoft have always had an intense rivalry. Although they both took two different approaches to computers. Microsoft focused solely on software, while Apple focused on hardware as well. Bill Gates knew that he only had to make a software once, and license it to other computer companies such as IBM and HP. This made it so that Microsoft would spend less and make more. Even though they took different approaches to computers, they still were competing to innovate faster than each other, and some times they even built off of each other. This caused the technology to progress at a much faster rate.

I have shared with you three different examples starting at the beginning of the 20th Century, of how technology has changed our society’s. I talked about how human conflict in World Wars, has caused people to innovate and change how wars were fought. That was done through improving weapons and transportation. The youth in the 60’s were known as hippies, and they rebelled against the government, but they did not have technology to their advantage which could have immensely improved their results as they failed without it. The last topic I focused on was how the advent of the two Steve’s and Bill Gates with Paul Allen shaped the world with new innovative ideas, which in result has kept changing the world since they started their companies. Now if you think about the industrial revolution, we are currently in a bigger faster version of that, which is causing our world to be smaller, faster, and more dynamic then ever before.

Both of those assignments were great for basically the same reason. The video I made took what I had learned and put it into a descriptive video form. After watching it just shows how much I had learned on that ship. The essay on the other hand took what I had learned and put it on a piece of paper. While I was done proofreading it, I kind of took a step back and went “Holy crap!” I learned so much in just the span of 9 days. It kind of blew my mind and I am hoping that in the future I will have the oppuritunity to learn that much in that amount of time again.

High Tech High, Eh

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As you know from a previous blog post, I went to California. While I was there with my class, we visited many different places, stretching from San Diego to San Francisco. One of the main places we went to in San Diego was High Tech High. HTH was one of the components to our learning expierence while we were in California, as it is a school that is completely different from any other school that I have seen.

The first thing that we did while we were at HTH was got introduced to our HTH buddy, as they would be with us for the rest of our stay at HTH. We were paired up with a student from HTH becuase, it would help us better understand what people at HTH do on a daily basis. We first got a tour of HTH just to be able to see what the rest of the campus was like. It was very interesting as it was very noticeable that this school was very different from every other school. The first thing you notice is that there are projects all over the place. Yes, normally you would see projects in the hallways of most schools, but this was on a whole other level. For example there was a bridge in the middle of one fo the hallways. Not a small bridge, a bridge that was several feet of the ground and went from one side of the hallway to the other. I was just walking by when I saw it so I am not quite sure what the purpose of it was, but it was really cool as it was fully built by the students. Another big thing that you notice while you are at HTH is that there are not lockers what so ever, I’m not sure why but they just don’t have them. One of the most obvious things that you see while you are there is that each class room has large windows in them so you can see clearly into them of what they are doing. It gives a more open feeling and less compact. You are also probably wondering why High Tech High is actually called High Tech High. You probably think that it is some super high tech place with computers everywhere, but in reality it’s quite different from that. HTH is a school that approaches teaching the students at a completely different angle than most schools. They give the students more freedom of what they want to do. Most schools just end up making the students study a text book and then test them on how well they understand it. On the other hand HTH study’s something together in class than discusses it, and gives there opinion on it.

While we were with our buddies, we wet to each of there classes. The first class I went to was Humanities, which if you didn’t know is Social Studies and English mixed together. While we were in there classes we participated in each of their activities. One of them was writing about what makes a great school. Here is what I wrote:

   If I was not in PLP I would not have the same friends, I would not have the same sense of pride that I do when I am in PLP, and I would probably struggle a little bit more as it is not the way I prefer to learn. A great school needs a lot of things to make it a great school. To start off one of the most important things is the teachers, as they are the role models of the school and set examples for the students. The teachers have to be good enough to know if certain students are falling behind or not quite understanding something, and if that happens they need to know how to take action and get that student back on track. The most important thing is the sense of community in a school as it makes the student feel more comfortable.

The next class I went is the class with probably the biggest reputation and probably the most hated class… Math. We ended up doing a math problem in groups that was actually very interesting, that in the end just made my brain hurt.

The next class that we went was very interesting as we talked about events that had happened very recently. For example one event that was brought up was about a Dodge Ram Commerical with Martin Luther King’s speech in the background. When we watched the video, the person who had brought the topic up explaiend how he felt about it and I completley agreed with him, as the way they used the speech in the commercial basically defeated the point of the commercial. This class was very interesting as it gave the students chance to give there opinion on something, which gives other students a chance either agree or voice there own opinion and argue.

While we were at HTH we had a project assigned to us, and that was to interview our HTH buddy. We were assigned to do it because, it would basically force us to get a better understanding of what life was like going to HTH. Sadly while I did my interview, there were other students playing dodgeball on the field making lots of noise. Here is the interview podcast that I made:

Going to High Tech High was one of the most memorable expeirnces I have ever had. I learned about how HTH is devoted to creating a school with students that are hard working and devoted. The way they accomplish that is by making it clear that being in HTH is a privelage and not everybody is able to have that privelage. HTH is a diverse community where everybody feeds off each other to create great results, and most of all to create HTH creates great students which leads to making great people.

California, Eh

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I was gone between February 2nd and 9th. You can probably guess where if u have seen the title of this post. I went to California, more specifically San Diego, San Jose and San Francisco. I went there with my class becuase, my unit in humanities is based around disruption, and California has a lot of examples of disruption.

The first day I woke up at 3:15am becuase I had to be at the airport at the wonderful time of 4:30am. We got to San Diego, went and had lunch then went to Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve. The reason why people made a state reserve for pine trees is becuase that is a pine tree that only grows in that spot and one other. We the went to La Jolla Cove and played frisbee until the sun went down, mainly because we could’t see the frisbee anymore.

 

 

Torrey Pines

 

 

La Jolla Cove

The next day we went to San Diego Zoo Safari Park. We got to see tons of different animals, we even got to go behind the scenes in the elephant enclosure and got to see how they take care of them. Probably the coolest part about that day was we got to go up in a hot air balloon. I got some great photos as I could see for miles.

 Elephant Enclosure

 

 

View from Hot Air Baloon

 

 

The next day was one of my favourites as we went to the USS Midway. If you don’t know what that is, its a massive aircraft carrier that has been turned into a museum. It took all day to see it as as there were so many different parts of the ship, plus we talked with a couple veterans on the ship. The coolest part of that day though was being able to talk to a WWII veteran.

 Sunset on the USS Midway

The next day we went to High Tech High. It’s called High Tech High, because it is a charter school that takes a different approach on teaching the students, for example the students are given more freedom with decorating the school, and everything they do is through project based learning. It was very interesting as every person in my class got paired with one or more students from HTH. HTH is very different compared to most schools, they don’t have lockers they don’t really have sports, but almost everybody there is very focused and hard working as they had to apply to get into the school. After we were done at HTH we went to the Cabrillo National Monument. It was very interesting there as we learned about Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, and his role in exploring the west coast of the US

  We went to 5 Guys for Lunch

 

Sun Set at the Monument

 

 

The next day we went to HTH again. We got to be a able to witness what there normal school life was like. It was very different from what I have but at the same time they were just normal high school kids who like to goof around. After we were done at HTH that day we hopped on a plane and left San Diego and enetered San Jose. We got there at night time so we just had dinner and went to the hotel to get some rest.

The next day was really cool as we got to go and see Googleplex, AKA Google HQ. We didn’t really have a tour or anything so we acted like we were meant to be there, and we got to see just what kind of work environment Google employees work in. That day we also got to go to Apple Park. Apple Park is the most incredible building I have ever seen, although we didn’t actually go inside the main building, we did go to the visitor centre right next door which had a pice of aluminum worth $1,000,000. Not just because it was a hunk of metal, but because it was able to create an amazing expierence with a custom made iPad. We also went to the Intel Museum and learned about how Intel has changed through the years.

  Random Dinosour at Google

 

Cool Aluminum

 

 

The day after that we went to the computer history museum which was very interesting. I was very engaged while I was there as I learned about how computers progressed from being the size of a room to fitting in your pocket, and becoming way more powerful. That day we also went to Stanford, which has now become my dream university to go to. It was so cool to see one of the top university’s in the world in academics and athletics. That same day we also got to go to the birth place of Silicon Valley AKA the HP garage.

 

 

HP Garage

 

 

The next day we woke up and drove out to the apple garage, before we got on a train to Oakland. If you don’t know me I am an Oakland Raiders fan, so I was very happy to be able to see their peace of crap old stadium. We then went to San FranciscoThe coolest part about that day though was the fact that we got to go into Twitter HQ even though we missed lunch because of it. We got a tour around the building and got to see how things operate at Twitter. Later that day we went and saw the Golden Gate Bridge which was super cool.

  Twitter HQ

Golden Gate Bridge

 

 

 Oakland Colliseum

The next day we went down to Golden Gate Park, and started a walking tour. The walking tour was based around the history of San Francisco, for example The Summer of Love, Gay Rights movement etc. We learned about things from Smoking Bananas to Charles Manson. It was very interesting and really eye opening of how much really happened in San Francisco.  To end the trip, that night we did a tour of Alcatraz. It was really cool as we got to see one of if not the most famous prison on the planet. It was really cool as we saw what the living conditions for inmates at Alcatraz were like, and how the guards had to deal with them. One of the guards while we were there even locked me and a couple of friends of mine in a solitary confinement cell which was pitch black.

 The Mission District

The Rock

 

 View from Alcatraz

The next day we flew home to our families. I told the story of our journey to my family, and realized just how much I had learned on the trip and how much I had done.

California Book

They Keep Changing the Name, Eh

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Once again the name has changed, what used to be SLC, then was TPOL is Now MPOL, but I guess we’re still using TPOL for the end of the year. Anyways that’s not the point of this blog post, the point of this blog post is to talk about what I am going to be doing for my mPOL. This year there is a different format than past years. This year in my opinion involves a little bit more thought then past years. This year I am supposed to talk about the work that I have done this year, how I am proud of it or not proud of it, and how my skills have improved.

I am going start with an assignment at the beginning of the year. Which was my blog post on the WWI unit. I found it was not the best blog post I could produce but was definitely one of the better ones that I have done.

WWI Soldiers, Eh

I spent a lot of time on that project, and I learned a lot about my great grandfather, and it was one of the most interesting units in school I’ve ever done.

The next project I am going to talk about I was also proud of but mainly because it was just fun to make it. That project happens to be one that I did in science class, and it was focused on work safety and basically what not to do in a science class. It was mainly a lot of fun becuase of the humour we  added into the video we made.

I have another project that I was very proud of, and that was the group project that I did on aboriginal rights. With this project it especially made me proud after my teacher, my group members and I talked to Brad Baker who works for the school board. After we talked to him it told me that my group and we had done a good job on our essay, on that unit. That project involved a lot of good teamwork, as my group and I communicated a lot and divided all off the work we had to do. I also felt I showed a little bit of leadership in that project as I was named DRI, and I helped make important decisions.

Aboriginal Rights, Eh

This next project I was also proud of but it had some flaws. I was proud of it because my Grade 12 and I worked very well together, as I would make my podcast and then, send it to him and he would give me critique. That was our system for each podcast, as it made the podcasts the best that we could make them. The reason why I said there was flaws was, I felt that I wasn’t the most prepared I could be for the final podcast, and if I was it probably could have been stronger.

Everyone Has a Story, Eh

This next project that I am going to talk about was the video that I made for the HTH students. The reason why I am going to talk about it is, that I did very well on my first draft. I actually did well enough to the point where I barely had anything to change on my second and third draft. Now I am going to incorporate that into a goal now that I have, which is; I want to put as much effort as I did into that video so that my first drafts are high quality and I don’t have to change as much for second and third drafts. If I can accomplish that goal, my quality of work will increase a lot, and I will have less stress when it comes to revising.

I was very proud of that video after I finished it as it fully explained who I am.

One of the last things I am going to talk about is something that I am not so proud of. That happens to be a math project that I did, and I am not so proud of it as I did not hand it in on time. I was a little bit ashamed of how late I handed it in, so I am going to work and do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen again. One good thing that I can say about that project is that I still put a lot of effort into to incorporating the golden ratio into the image.

The Golden Ratio, Eh

Last but not least the thing that has made this SLC/TPOL/MPOL different from every other. I am supposed to ask my teachers question that is specific to me. The question I am going to ask is based off of my work habits between last term and this term. The question I’m going to ask is; How has my quality of work changed since last term, as it was sub par?

Now that I look back at what I have done this year, I have noticed it has all gone by really fast, and I have learned a lot. Now I realize that I still have a lot to do before this school year is finally over.

Everyone Has a Story, Eh

ethand on

To end the year we did a very interesting project, and it is also a lot different then the past Blue Sky Exhibitions I have done. For a while, the only thing we knew about it was, that we were going to be working with the grade 12’s(if you didn’t know, I am in grade 10). That was the only thing we knew for weeks, we constantly were prodding our teachers for information, until finally, they told us what we were going to do. The first thing they told us was that this unit was going to be based off of something called story corps. They then told us that we were going to make 3 podcasts in the span of about 3-4 weeks. Starting off with one that involved the grade 10 interviewing the grade 12, but first we actually had to meet our partner grade 12. Apparently the grade 12’s selected their grade 10. I don’t know how they selected us but they did, although I thought it would be funny if they drafted us like it was the NFL. Anyways like I said the first podcast had to involve interviewing the grade 12(Oh and by the way my grade 12’s name is Tom). Tom and I immidiatly started brainstorming questions that i could ask him that could pull a story out of him. Right after we made 10 or so questions, we went and found a quiet place in the school. I interviewed him, went home and editid it, and this is my product that I got from it.

The next podcast involved the grade 10 interviewing a family member or family friend of some sort. I chose one of my long time family friends that have known me for as longa as I have been alive. The person who I intervieweds name is Brian Webster. I know him because he and his wife are very good friends with my parents. I interviewed him about his job becuase I only knew a little bit about it, so I asked him ten or so questions that would get a story out of him.

https://youtu.be/Igz73KXUuLs

Now lastly we had our final podcast that we had to make. That one was going to begin on the night of the exhibiton. That meant that we were going to interview 3 people who went to the exhibiton that the Grade 10 has never met. The person who I found had the most interesting story was John Sushams, who happens to be grade 12 partners dad.

Those were all the podcasts that we had to do, and it was probably one of my more favourite blue sky projects that I have ever done. I am also very excited to see what it is like to be the grade 12 for that project.