Why WWI Began, Eh

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In class are assignment was to create a thesis about how the First World War or the Great War started. Everybody had to read about watch a couple videos to learn about how it began and then we worked in groups to develop the best thesis. I worked on it with my classmate Leonard and Bill well technically there names are Ryan and Will. We decided to focus on two things that started the war one was leading up to it and the other was the final straw.

We decided that the biggest event that caused the Great War was the Assasination of Franz Ferdinand. Here is our thesis: Ferdinand was the last event in a series of other bad events that led to WW1 starting. He was one of the only high ranking people in europe that opposed war. Once he was killed it took away almost all chances of stopping the War from starting. Ferdinand wanted Serbia and Austria Hungary to be allies but when he was killed by a Serbian that was the final and what turned into the trigger for WW1.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=_hKQcMJ_vOc

If you didn’t notice that there were multiple pictures of the same person then you should probably get your eyes checked , either that or you just werent paying attention. It is called a tableau, so basically we took multiple photos of the same person in different positions and then leonard used photoshop and put it all together, it wasn’t super complicated if you’re more or less used to photoshop. He also added flags at the end just to clarify it better.

If you look really hard you might be able to see a faint silhouette of a face in the back of the car. It kinda looks creepy but hes there if you look hard enough.  Oh and by the way Will blames WWI on the driver.

S.M.A.R.T. Goals, Eh

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Now that it is the beginning of the school year we have been ask to make goals, more specifically 3 S.M.A.R.T.  Goals. A SMART goal is a goal that is SPECIFIC MESURABLE ATTAINABLE RIGOROUS and TRACKABLE. I think you get the point, anyways I previously mentioned we had to do 3 of them, each of them different. The first one is about something inside of school, the second is something that has to improve your character, and finally the third one which is something that you can improve that does not involve school. Here are my goals.

Those are my recordings, I also have to relate each picture to my goals. The first one which was the in school goal was a picture of me doing school work to show that I am going to be more focused on keeping my grades up to my standard.

The next one was focused on my character which and I chose to make my goal focused on making my time management better so I chose a picture of me wearing a watch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last one was for outside of school, so I decided to focus on physical fitness, and to represent that I found a picture of me throwing a football.

Those were my three goals that I made for the year, so now I should focus on completing them.

Blue Sky, Eh

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In my class we had been working on a project of the end of the year that was part of our final mark for the end of the year. Everybody in the class had to do it. Some did it with another partner but most of the class did it on there own. I did mine on my own. The main idea for the project was to find a small problem in the world and then find a small solution for it. It wasn’t quite that simple though. You had to narrow it down to a certain age group my age group was seniors. My idea originated from my grandmother who has dementia. She like her hats, and she kept buying hats that were very similar to hats she already had. We told her that she had a hat like that but she had no idea that she had all of these hats. I then came up with this.

It was basically a cone with clips on it. It held the hats up and it spun because it was suspended by a chain from the ceiling. That was the earliest prototype. I also made a larger one that spun on the ground and another tat could sit on a desk that was about the same size as this one.

None of them took to long to build as the design was fairl simple and all it took was sanding, sawing, painting, and attaching. That’s not the part that mattered, the part that matttered is that it did what i wanted it to, which was putting all of the hats on a display. By putting the hats on display like that it makes it easier for someone to know what hats they have because tehy see them everyday when they walk by it. My theory is that it brought all of the hats at the back of the pile to the front with the rest of the hats. We then had a exhibition on June 15th. I was mixed with to other Grade 9’s and a handful of grade 8’s. We had to put together a theme for our area so we said Tim Hortons because seniors like Tim Hortons. It took a while before we got to that idea because where else do seniors go, some people said old folks home, which would have been depressing. So we had to come up with new idea and thats how we got Tim Hortons. We served donuts as the food because what else would you get at Tim Hortons.  The exhibition went well and everybody was happy that they didn’t have to deal with the stress from the project anymore.

I was certainly happy I wasn’t stressed, eh.

 

Final Assignment of the Year, Eh

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It has been a long year, but we are finally onto the last assignment. There have been many assignments but it now comes down to the final  one. This final involves the whole unit that we have been doing in humanities. Our unit has been on the greatest moments of history in Canada. Their are a lot of great moments that have happened in Canadas history. One of the most famous is the CPR, because it is still around today, but I have chosen a different moment to be the greatest moment in Canadas history. I have chosen the battle which took place on the Plains of Abraham.

The battle of the plains of Abraham was the deciding factor of whether Canada was going to be mainly British or mainly French, unless you have been living under a rock you should know that British won, of course that meant Canada would become mainly Quebec being the only French Canadian part of Canada. Great Britain were more able to send resources becuase France were already focusing on The West Indies, and most importantly Great Britain got more money along with the resources.

Another thing that happened from the battle was, Britain took control of the St. Lawrence seaway. That made it so they took control of the Shipping industry, and controlled most of the fur trade. They also basically controlled the gateway to canada. That allowed people to immigrate to Canada from Britain, they would basically end up farming land wherever they wanted it. That ended up pushing people west towards less explored parts of Canada which had more space. With more people moving west that into BC the gold rush ended up starting.

The British then noticed the invasions of the Americans which then forced The War of 1812. The British gave more troops to North America than France would because France was focused on The West Indies, which I have already mentioned. They then burnt down the whitehouse, and said don’t do it again. For some reason the Americans think they won that war, which in my opinion is insane. Anyways, that meant that Canada was not taken over by the Americans even though Canada wasn’t Canada yet. They were also able to take control of western Canada, which if they didn’t they would not have things like the gold rush because the US would have that. Last but not least that made it so  they could confederate all the way over to Vancouver Island, and have the country we know today as Canada. I also did an assignment on life after the Seven Years War, which my group wrote a letter that was from the Seigneurs in North America, so this is the letter we wrote.

I also made a mind map that summarizes all of this and how The Battle of the Plains of Abraham made such a big difference in Canadas history.

Oh and heres a funny song I found on the war of 1812 from Canadas perspective. (If you are from USA and are offended easily I don’t recommend watching this eh)

 

SLC’s, But Now Their Called TPOL’s, Eh

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If you have seen other blogposts of mine you should have seen the posts about SLC’s. Here’s a quick rundown of what they are, it’s called a Student Led Conference. It’s like a Parent Teacher Interview but the student is doing all of the talking. Now my teachers have decided to call it a TPOL, which stands for Transitional Presentation of Learning. They changed it because it is the end of the year and we are transitioning to the next grade. If you want to see an SLC blog post here it is

 

SLC’s , Eh

For the TPOL you have to prepare quite a bit, so I will tell you how I did that. We had to thin of a few things to talk about. I chose to talk about the goals that I have for myself next year, Did my work meet my standards this year? And now last but not least what I have learned about myself this year. I have mainly focused this presentation on talking about how I need to better myself for next year. For the TPOL I would have to talk about each of those things.

I would start with, did my work meet my standards? The first thing I would say is no. It is as simple as that. I know that this year I could have done better, the work they did this year was not my best. My full capability was not shown in my work this year. I mainly believe that when I think of my video creating using explain everything and iMovie. I thought that the main thing wrong with that is that my voice audio was not good enough. In general though my work just lacked it’s full potential. Here is a post with a video in it.

Frankenstuffies, Eh

Now onto the next thing I would talk about, which is, what have I learned about myself this year? I have learned that I can’t take my foot off the pedal for a moment. I did that at the beginning of this year and my marks dropped. I know that I am able to handle it and stay a float, but I don’t want to just stay afloat, I want to do great things with my work and have it look like I am having no problem whatsoever and not look like I am struggling.

Now finally last but not least my goals for next year. I chose my goals to be at the end because it envolves the last two topics. My first main goal is to be more organized. This year I have not especially when it comes to physical things like paper. My binder was very messy and definitely needs improvement, next year I am going to put more effort into keeping my binder neat and tidy. I was also not very organized with what major events were coming up, and I wasn’t quite sure what dates were which and that didn’t turn out well for me so I have decided to make an effort in that category for next year as well. My next relates to my first paragraph on, am I satisfied with the work I have done this year. You now that I am not, so I would like to improve for next year and make sure that I am proud of all my work as much as possible, whether its projects or just plain assignments. Now my final goal for next year, I also told you about what I have learned about myself this year, this goal relates directly to that. I would like to not take my foot off of the gas pedal next year because it showed in my grades this year on how much damage it can do. I was not impressed with it nor was anyone else who knew my potential.

That would be everything that I would talk about, so I would wrap it up and give a brief summary and then ask if there were any questions. That is basically everything that happens in a TPOL because after I say everything I need to it basically turns into a conversation about my grade, my expectations for next year and anything else that somebody wants to bring up that relates to this. Oh I forgot to tell you one of the main details about TPOL’s/SLC’s, they are very very very very very, stressful eh.

The Things I Carry, Eh

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In school we had a mint project in Health and Career. We had to create a keynote presentation that explained 10 things that we carry everyday to make ourselves succesful, mental and physical. Keynote is basically a version of PowerPoint, but it was made specifically for Apple. It was originally used just by the people form Apple but they decided to put it on to apple products such as iPads and iPhones. Our class had not used keynote before, so this assignment mainly focused on recognizing what we carry every day and our keynote skills. At the beginning it was all a mad scramble to find out how to use keynote. After just playing with it for a little bit you get the hang of it and it becomes a lot easier than you thought it would be. I was very overwhelmed, but I ended up doing a pretty decent job for my first time.

Personally I have never been comfortable with public speaking I have always gotten really stressed out and wanted to just not show up to school so I wouldn’t have to do it. In the end though I just figure out a way to get through it and just finish it. The funny thing about presentations is that when you think you’re done your not… you still have to deal with questions. To be completley hones that is the hardest part if people have lots of questions because you can’t prepare for that as well as the actuall presentation. Presentations are kind of onnoying because until you finish them they are always hanging over you head, but they don’t happen very often which is nice. When they do happen though I just say to myself, “What can you do when you live in a shoe.” FYI I don’t actually live in a shoe its a figure of speech.

This is how I feel in class sometimes, but then I realize I acutally havt to do the assignment or presentation, and that face turns into a stressed face.

Once I am finally done I feel so much better and I can finally relax, but wait I have more assignments to do, eh.

My Fairytale, Eh

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Now here is another assignment that we did in class. It was in Health and Career, and our teacher decided to have us make a video. The topic for the video is a fariytale story of my life. Too start off the video you had to give a small amount of background to yourself. Then you had to add stuff that you wish or dream to do in the your life. For the rest of the assignment we had to do these quizzes from work BC, to see what it predicted I should do for a job. Personally I don’t think I should have gotten these types of jobs but that’s just me.

I am not interested really in those jobs at all. The job that I would like to have when I have would be Chemical Engineer. I chose that because I would like to pursue something that envolves math and science, another reason is that it pays well😉, and we all know that thats a plus. Before I could get that job I would like to go to a good University, Cal Tech would be cool but that there acceptance rate isn’t exactly high, its hovering somewhere around 8%. My more realistic University that I would like to go to that isn’t nearly as expensive is McGill, yes it is one 5 Canadian Ivy League schools, but my plan is shoot for the moon land amongst the stars. It also is a little bit easier to get into with an acceptance rate of 46% which my opinion should make things a lot easier, but then again it’s still gonna be tough.  Another part of the assignment is to create a timeline of 10 things in your past, but I added in my future as well.

That was most of the assignment but the main par was the video which was the summary of the whole topic that we were focusing on. Here is my video.

That was my Fairytale, Eh what’s yours Eh.

Frankenstuffies, Eh

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The last unit that I did in school for humanities was mainly on geography, but it had a slight twist. The end project was to create a video too show who is in control the humans or the environment. We had to pick a part of Canadian geography to reasearch and then make the video on that area. Although the video was on that area it was not exactly normal, we had to make a Frankenstuffie. A frankenstuffie is a stuffie that has been modified by either replacing parts of it or adding parts to the stuffie. Personally, I am horrible at stitching anything. My stitching job wasn’t necessarily well done, I did my best and that’s all that matters. With my stuffie I had to spray paint it first, becuase the stuffie I got was a flamingo and, well flamingos don’t really live in the St.Lawerence Lowlands so to speak.

It was originally a pink flamingo but I painted it red and called it a cardinal. I then of course had to turn it into a Frankenstuffie. First I tore the thing open then I ripped all the fluff out, and the sqweeker(It’s a dog toy). I then sewed that back up, and added a eye to it’s chest but I used it more as something that looks kinda like an air filter. It turned out well for me considering it didn’t fall apart once I disconnected the needle from the string.

I probably made a mistake showing you a closeup because now you can see how ugly my sewing job was. During this project we read a book, most people have probably seen the movie staring Matt Damon, called “The Martian”, we read the book of it. The book was very good and is a little bit different from the movie as usual the book goes into more detail. It is probably my favourite book that I was ever told I have to read it for school work, and do mini book reports through the unit.

The second picture is not what I did but that’s just me 😉.  We learned about geography in humanities and ecology in science, we had to make a video including both topics. In science we doing tons and tons of notes, and then doing quizzes every once in a while between each set of notes. The ecology part was learning about organisms and habitats and things like that it wasn’t really to complicated, but it was a lot to take in. The geography was all focused on Canada, we learned about different regions like the Canadian Shield, fun fact the Canadian Shield covers half of Canada. This unit was also a lot to take in because of all the different regions in Canada, mostly becuase it is the second largest country in the world behind Russia.

Before we could get started on the video, we had to write a whole story, mine is over 2,240 words, some people wrote more then that. At first I thought that we had to make a video for each episode that we wrote, you might ask how many episodes there are, there are 8. That would take so long, I was so relieved to find out I only had to do one video on as many episodes as I felt nesscary. I decided that the most important part of my story was episodes 6,7,8. That part of the story was all of the climax to the ending. This is the Book.

At first the whole unit seemed really overwhelming and I wasn’t sure where to start, but once I got the ball rolling everything seemed to click, sure there were a couple times where it was a time crunch. That is basically everything that happened in this unit here is my video, eh.

 

Making Fantasy Real, Eh

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In class we did a big project on Fantasy. We even ended up going on a field trip to florida. It was a really cool project where we focused on how Disney emerges everybody who goes there into an imaginary world. To make us fully understand we went on the rides there, but we focused on one ride per person. I got expedition everest, it is one of the scarier rides in all of Disney World, and probably the most in the Animal Kingdom. The ride creates a real adrenaline rush for anybody who likes fast rides and big drops. The ride even has a point where you go backwards. If you want to learn more about our trip heres my blog post on field schools.

Lots of Field Schools, Eh

We focused on what Disney did to emerse everybody into what seemed like another dimension, the main question was what draws us to imaginary worlds. We had to write essays about it which was a little bit painful, the essay focused on alice in wonderland. That was the book that we read throughout this unit then we ended up watching the older alice in wonderland movie. This is a blog post I did on that.

Alice in Wonderland, Eh

Anyways while we were there we had to interview people and ask there opinions on what they thought brings everybody to an imaginary world when they go on one of the rides. We had to take pictures of everything that would could be useful and we had to write down notes about everything we figured out from being there or from doing reasearch on the internet.  I got to interviews and loads of information on the ride. I don’t want to tell you every detail becuase that is explained on the video I made.

Well before we could actually make the video we had to story boards, which aren’t that hard if you what you’re doing but if you don’t know what to do your are going to be there for a while. After we did that we went to florida and got everything we needed for the story boards. After that we put it all together to make a video on everything we learned, but wait a second you not done you have to do 2 more drafts of it to make it just right. I will now show you my third draft video eh.

 

This is What I Eat, Eh

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In Health and carreer my teacher decided that an assignment should be to make a portrait of ourselves. The catch is that we had use all the foods we eat to create it. I’m not a picky eater so I had tons of selection. I actually had a harder time deciding what foods would fit best rather than what foods I could use. I decided that I should be honest with myself and put a bunch of foods that aren’t exactly healthy. I put in a mix of healthy and unhealthy. At first it looked like a blob and like it needed a lot of work. After a while I had gone through a couple ideas of each part I finally found the right combination to make a food shaped body. My food choices aren’t necessarily the best, but it turns out a lot of foods that are bad for you work for body parts. To be honest I should cut down on my sugar and deep fried food intake.

These two memes explain me quite a bit. I’m now trying to be more disciplined. I feel that this photo also explains my eating habits quite a bit as well.

I have a chicken wing for a head, tomatoes for eyes, apples for ears, banana for a mouth, pickles for eyebrows, french fries for ears, protein powder for a torso/neck, celery for arms and hands, mars bar and snickers bar for legs, and fuzzy peaches for feet. After I wrote that I realized that is a quite a bit of different types of foods. Part of the assignment was to reflect on these videos we were told to watch. The first video I watched was about how much meat we eat compared to how much we actually need, it also talked about foods being shipped opposed to local foods. I thought that its pretty horrible how people are shipping foods from so far away for basics. It is also horrible how much livestock is killed each year and we don’t even need to eat that much meat. We are only supposed to eat .5 pound of beef each day and that’s how much on average an american eats a day. The second focuses on obesity and hungry people in this world. There are 1 billion hungry people and 1 billion obese people, to me that doesn’t sound right. The person who was talking was focused on feeding people in countries that didn’t have very much food. Just thinking about it makes me think of how good I have it living in such a nice place with all of the privelages I have.

That’s what my food body looks like what would yours, eh.