The Sequel Is Never as Good as The Original.

Before I get started, make sure that you’ve read my previous blog post. If not, you can click/tap/whatever the preview thingy below.

What a DI-Saster

Hi there again folks. My name is Jason Guan and I will be walking you through another DI post. So, I won’t really be explaining a lot about what DI is and stuff like that in this post, so if you have absolutely no idea DI is or you have really terrible memory, then scroll up and read my recent blog post.

So, this is a continuation of my previous post, the last one being about regionals, and this one being about provincials. A bigger, better, DI tournament that’s a 40 minute drive from where I live. Needless to say, it was obviously incredibly fun…. Anyways, The Space Cows made their triumphant return after weeks and weeks of doing…… absolutely nothing. We did improve some things though. We made a literal backdrop and we also improved our lines by quite a bit.

In regionals, we ended up forgetting many of our lines, but we did a lot of rehearsing and managed to memorize all of our lines while adding several new (humerous?) lines. Also, we nearly ran out of time last time because we spent around a minute setting up the projector, but this time, we made a new backdrop with backdrop props hanging off of strings that we just hung over the edge.

Then came DI day. I got up at 6:30 in order to leave at around 7 and successfully make it to provincials. After we arrived and unloaded all the stuff (and there were a ton of props), we went to the gym for the assembly.

We then spent 2 hours rehearsing lines and awaiting our instant challenge. To be honest, I thought we did better than last time. Although I’m not allowed to reveal what we did during the challenge, we did our best and t’was a valiant effort.

After cheering on our fellow Seycove teams, it was time for some Super Special Superb Space Cow action. We graced the stage to thunderous moos from our adoring fans. And, even better, I DIDN’T FACE MY BACK TO THE AUDIENCE!!!

*clears throat* Sorry about that. Just really proud of myself. Anyways…. we did a darn good job. We remembered our key points in the script and nailed all of our lines. And guess what, WE GOT THIRD PLACE. Yep. Our hard work and dedication paid off as we were the only Grade 8 team to bring home a trophy and medals.

You know, DI was a really rewarding experience. I learned tons of new thing that I wouldn’t have learned otherwise, and I was able to solidify that with hours of hands on construction and research. I made some new friends and I got hands on experience. What else could you ask for in a school project? Sadly, I don’t think we’re allowed to go to globals unless we start a go fund me or a kickstarter that can make 5,000 dollars before May 23rd. So, this is my final DI post….. until next year. Be on the lookout for my next DI Post, DI 2: The DI-Ing.

Oh, wait a sec, I almost forgot a few things:

The DI Website

https://www.destinationimagination.org/proven-results/

If you’re up for a little more reading, here’s a link to the Destination Imagination website’s Proven Links section which basically compares the creativity levels of children who participate in DI as compared to children who don’t.

It’s pretty interesting stuff, so go check that out if you’re interested in participating in DI and need a little extra to convince you to join (you should).

The Project Management Steps

Here’s a list of the project management steps: Recognize, imagine, initiate, collaborate, assess, evaluate, and celebrate.

Recognize – So, I personally believe that recognize means recognizing any risky parts and fixing them. For us, that was our main attraction. Our first plan was for some sort of spring ride, but we quickly realized that this is real life, and there is no way to find an economy sized spring, so Fraser thought up our new ride, with the rocking horse concept.

Imagine – I think the main part where imagination played a big part was the location. At first, we were thinking of doing a generic planet like mars of Venus, but we realized that that was supremely boring. So, we looked at moons. We found Phobos, which is a moon of mars, and we found out that coincidentally, Phobos is the greek god of fear. We worked that into our story with the whole curse and artifact part.

Initiate and collaborate – It’s no surprise that I’m running out of words OK? For those of you who read my blog posts regularly, then you’ll know that I do tend to write too much sometimes, so I’m going to combine a few of these. We kind of did use two of these for one goal: To build a ride that doesn’t snap immediately once we put someone on it. We used our teamwork skills to cut, decorate, and finish our attraction and, surprise surprise, it did not fall apart.

Assess and evaluate – So, at the end of our performance, after a couple of hours, we see our raw scores, which only includes our score for the central challenge. Here’s ours:

We did an activity where we looked at our performance and our scores, then we said if they were accurate or not. This was OK, because we got to see our actual scores, instant challenge and everything.

Celebrate – Not much to say about this one. We got 3rd place, we celebrated, and we brought back home yet another trophy. Also, we took this cool group photo.

Oop. I just saw my face. I look like I just watched something very disturbing and are scarred mentally. Meh, what’re you going to do. I guess this is the end. Bye.

Until Next Time,

Yours Truly, Jason “The Pebble” Guan

Currently in a lawsuit against The Rock for a “blatant ripoff” of his nickname

A Stitch In Time

Guess what, it’s me again. Also, I’m not sure if this is the first time I’ve used this intro. All of my posts all really meld together after a while. Anyways, this post is going to be about the feudal ages. That’s right, not the dark ages, not the Renaissance, the feudal ages. Excited yet?

The Fall Of Rome

So, we started by looking at Rome, and more importantly, how it fell. We looked at some possible theories, and also at 3 different groups. The Franks (French), Anglo-Saxons (English), and the Vikings. We also created some very… interesting freeze frames depicting these groups. For your safety, I will shield your eyes from these, but beware. I’m just sayin’.

After the fall of Rome, we were put into different groups. My new group consisted of Gabby, Lucy, and Ben.

We were also introduced to our main question, “How did the crusades Impact our worldview?”. That’s right. More Worldview! Everybody’s favourite topic!

The Book Of The Lion

So, after all the introduction stuff, we got started. First, started reading a book called the Book Of The Lion. It was pretty intresting, and it was probably the most interesting book we’ve read so far. A lot of gore, a lot of crime, and many things that would not be allowed in school, but we read it anyways. (Don’t tell anybody). For example, in the first few chapters, a serf runs away from his master and someone gets his hand ‘chopped off. Pretty disturbing material.

After our introduction to the book, we started exploring myths as well. We started by looking at some well known myths and heroes. We started by looking at some famous historical myths, e.g. Hercules. We also did a case analysis of everyone’s favourite miscreant, Robin Hood. Unfortunately, I was sick the day we did this so I can’t really explain any further.

The Hero’s Journey

So, after the whole myths thing, we looked at the hero’s journey. Pretty much a story outline that most stories, tv shows, movies, etc, follow. Anything from Star Wars and Lord of the Rings to The Avengers And even the Magic School Bus can somehow relate to this set, with some varying aspects. Here’s a helpful video to help you learn more about what the Hero’s Journey is.

Also, here’s a helpful Crash Course about The Hero’s Journey And the Monomyth.

Finally, here’s a video showcasing some examples of the Hero’s Journey in classic, well known movies.

Feudalism

Meanwhile, as we were learning about myths and the hero’s journey, we learned about feudalism. Feudalism is pretty much the political system in use during the Middle Ages until the Renaissance. Now, Feudalism is some complicated stuff, so I’ll give you a short littl- wait a second, why explain it to you when I can just embed a YouTube video! I’m probably not lying when I say that most of you out there reading these posts, yeah you, you great 6 or maybe 7 people, would rather watch a YouTube video of someone much more entertaining than I am explain these topics, right? Cue the Crash Course!

The Crusades

Now, onto the Crusades. The Crusades were no laughing matter, you see. They were filled with death, and blood, and gore, and all other sorts of bad stuff. So I’ll give you a brief explanation before I put in another Crash Course. Pretty much, in the feudal ages, Jerusalem, the holy land, was in control by the Muslims, and the English/Christians wanted the land. So, pretty much, like what many historical wars have been fought over, they went ahead and tried to take it. Now, that was all going fine and dandy until this guy, Saladin, came along and just absolutely dominated the English. I forget the rest, so here’s yet another Crash Course.

So now, we were reaching the end. That’s right, it’s time to try to explain THE FINAL PROJECT.

The Final Project

Ok, So, our final project as a group consisted of 2 main parts. The story, and the quilt. We had to first write a story about 2 main protagonists (Heroes). A Christian And a Muslim. The goal here was to create 2 stories from 2 different points of view. The Christians were obsessed with killing and gore and victory, while the Muslims were kinda just there like “Who the heck are you people and what have we ever done to you.”

Our first draft was really weird. With like this time travel angle and this ancient relic and some weird futuristic rebels-it was strange. So, we simplified it. Our Christian hero, Joseph, is a young crusader, who falls off of a walk during combat. Our Muslim hero, Muhammad, sees Joseph and tries to save him. After Joseph wakes up, he sees his “enemy”, Muhammad, and lashes out and attacks Muhammad. Apparently, Joseph has a knack for injuring himself as he ends up hurting himself even further. Joseph learns that Muhammad isn’t an enemy and they try to team up and stop the war. When they question the elder, the elder informs them that the crusades cannot be stopped. The two heroes then leave Jerusalem in search of a better life.

Now we had to use symbolism and our young minds to turn these stories into quilts. To get us inspired, we went to an art gallery in North Vancouver called the Gordon Smith Gallery. There, we saw an exhibit about the First Nations people and a lot of symbolistic, abstract, modern art. P.S, if you didn’t know, I really dislike modern art. I think it looks OK, but it’s too confusing for me. You can’t really figure out the true meaning of an abstract painting unless there’s a plate beside it listing the meaning, or if you guess.

Also, we had donair there. If you didn’t know, donair is a piece of pita bread containing some sort of meat or falafel, vegetables, and some sort of sauce/spread. It was pretty gosh darn good. Also, donair meat is usually a long cylinder of seasoned meat that’s put into a broiler and cooked. The meat is then sliced off into strips and put into the donair. If you are questioning why I wrote an entire section about food and/or think I’m crazy for having done so, you obviously do not know me very well.

Now, back onto the quilts. For our quilts, they had to be double sided, meaning they should be symmetrical if you wanted to stitch it together. To be honest, I still don’t really understand our art to this day, but I’ll do my best to try to explain it. If my ramblings are too confusing for you to understand, go check out my group mates Gabby, Lucy, or Ben. They can probably provide you with better explainations than I ever could. Here we go. Wait, before I start, the 1st column is Story 1, And the 2nd column is Block 2. The rows are the block numbers.

(P.S. Try to imagine me saying these in a snooty, rich art collector voice while you read. Trust me.)

Story 1: Block 1

Here we see a magnificent display of colours dancing on the page as the white triangle surrounded by red is Joseph’s perception of Muhammad. The anger shines through in this work as we can tell the artist is very captivated by this story. The triangle with a piece missing is obviously Joseph, as he has indubitably injured himself.

Story 2: Block 1

Here we see yet another instalment of the crusade series, this one almost better than the last. Here we see Muhammad’s perspective captured in this absolutely divine masterpiece. The green represents the peace that Muhammad is trying to share, while Joseph is shutting him out.

Story 1: Block 2

This is the long awaited third instalment in the crusade series. It is incredibly well done as it shows the two figures’ dueling personalities with the fiery Joseph and the peaceful Muhammad. The colours dance across the page as the sun has risen. Once again, the artists’ usage of the colour red to symbolize anger is simply brilliant.

Story 2: Block 2

This one is incredibly similar to the last, although not as well executed. The 2 figures are still quite clearly represented as the artist still seems to be in control of this masterpiece.

Story 1 And 2: Block 3

Here we see our two magnificent characters walking into the picturesque sunset as they flee the site of the war. These are indubitably the best out of the bunch as they show that the characters have become one divine, cohesive unit. Bravo.

Ok. Now here’s some pictures of our quilt.

Ok. Whew. That was quite a post eh? Thanks for sitting through this. Really. Well, I guess that’s it.

Ntl nxt tm, yrs trly, Jsn Gn

Rmvng ll th vwls frm th nd f ths pst

(Hats off to you if you can crack the code)

What a DI-Saster

Guess what? I’m back! After a short 2-3 month break, I’m back with what might be my biggest post yet. In this post, I will be documenting the horror that is known as Destination Imagination (DI). So, without further ado, wait, I want to clear something up. Despite the negative representation that you might assume from reading this first paragraph and title, just know that I mean these things in a kind, supportive, constructive criticism-esque way.

So, I’ll start by explaining what the actual hel.. heck DI is. Destination Imagination is a contest in which teams of 3-7 children and youth compete various challenges. There are 5 main types of challenges. Technical, Engineering, Scientific, Fine Arts, And Improvisation. In our class, they sent us google forms for what kinds of challenges we wanted to do and I was put into the scientific challenge. Here are some brief summaries of the various challenges available this year. Also, I’ve embedded some DI YouTube videos in this post, so feel free to watch those as well.

Technical: Maze Craze: Teams will create a small RC vehicle capable of entering a randomly selected maze and retrieving an item. They will then create a story for the traveller and act it out while operating the traveller.

Engineering: Drop Zone: Teams will create a freestanding (capable of standing by itself) structure made of cork, wood, and glue. It will be tested with many weights and the team will also have to create a story based around the structure and the dropping of weights.

Scientific (The best one, obviously): Unlikely Attraction: Teams will create an amusement park attraction and a story about the attraction operating in an unlikely location. The location must be someplace attractions would not commonly be found.

Fine Arts: Change Of Tune: Teams must create and rehearse a full musical comprising of song, dance, and an unforgettable event called the spectacle. My guess is that the spectacle should probably be a good surprise and child appropriate, so….

Improv: TREASURE: Ok, so the reason I typed treasure in all caps is because the kids in the video seemed really excited for this one, and I mean REALLY. Anyways, Teams in this challenge will have to research many historical explorers and cultural treasures in order to be prepared, because on the day of the performance, they will be randomly given 2 explorers and a cultural treasure to create an improv show with. They will also receive a randomly picked setback that they will have to work into their play. Also, all they get in terms of props is a white sheet, so some real spooky ghost opportunities there, just sayin’.

Also, every team must do an instant challenge, in which teams are randomly given a challenge and they must think up a solution on the spot.

Now onto our Story. First, we were put into teams. I was grouped up with Fraser, Luciano, and Kyle. We then brainstormed some ideas for what we were going to do. We decided on our attraction being located on Phobos, a moon of mars. The idea was for the ride to curse people that rode it because Phobos is the Greek god of fear. Our initial main ride idea was for this big, weird, mechanical bull spring toy UFO thingy that would just make me look like an idiot if I tried to explain it. I’m not an idiot, right? Right? Come on, someone back me up here! Anyways… we hit a huge speed bump midway through planning. Amazon unfortunately does not sell large springs like you see under every cartoon vehicle’s seat. This is another instance of cartoons blatantly lying To is as kids, right in front of our little gullible faces. After, that whole ordeal, Fraser came up with the idea of making a rocking horse type contraction and making it look like a UFO. Also, we came up with possibly the greatest team name of all time, The Space Cows.

About 2/3 of the way through, we started construction. And boy, did it take a long time. At first, we had to do the measuring, which was maybe 40-45 minutes of absolute, pure, 100% concentrated agony. Then we did something fun. Cutting things with power tools. Unfortunately, nobody trusts me around power tools, and with good reason, so I pretty much acted like a human paperweight.

After that, we all met up again to finish screwing it together and again, I still cannot be trusted with power tools. After that, the other members went and put some cardboard all over it to give it a rounded shape. Finally, we met up for the final time and put silver duct tape all over it to make it look pretty. Here is a timeline compilation to the tune of the Rasta Man himself, Bob Marley.

https://youtu.be/xC2yTbtVRMI

After all of the hardship, the pain, and all the moments that would have made the average man give up, we persevered thr- you know what, I can’t keep this up for much longer. It wasn’t that bad. Anyways, t’was DI Day. Although emotions were swirling that day, we had one common thought. No one wants to go to school on Saturday. Also, I WILL CRUSH ANY OTHER TEAM THAT TRIES TO TAKE US ON UNTIL THEY ARE NOTHING BUT A LOSING PILE OF DUST! *clears throat* Sorry about that. That was my suppressed rage talking. We all had 1 common goal: To take that W. And (spoiler alert), that’s exactly what we did. That’s right, we WON! I’d like to think my- wait, what? There’s still provincials? Regionals was just a warm up? Wow. Way to crush my happiness, inner me. Anyways, it was pretty nerve-wracking, having to go 2 hours after the opening ceremony. Also, I just was to say, Regionals were chaotic. Feelings were flying, and so were some of the props after the people with the flying feelings got to them. We really had to rush the paint jobs and I think we still did a good job.

That’s Kyle, by the way. I’d link his blog again but I’m too lazy. The link is somewhere up there. If you look hard enough. After the preparation, we were put through an intense line of questioning such as: “do you have any fireworks” and “are you carrying any fire extinguishers”. Not long after that, it was showtime. We put on a great, Oscar worthy performance, even though critics say my back was turned for 1 minute. Anyways, we brought the gold back to Seycove and now we’re ready. Provincials, here come the Space Cows!

Truly Yours, Guan Jason

Up getting currently his words mixed

Try-Poe

Hello loyal readers of which there are none because I’m not popular and no one wants to hear about the boring life of a 13 year old nobody-wait, I’m getting distracted. Anyways, in this post, I’ll be talking a bit about poetry. That’s right, that one subject you learn in elementary school but forget everything that you learned the next year. So, we did a quick poetry unit in the middle of our quilt unit, you can go check that post out after this post. So, first, we started with the basics. We made a list and wrote all of the terms that we learned in it. You can check mine out right here.

Poetry Terms List-22d9rnb

Ok, so we were introduced to our final project first, which is an entire book filled with poetry that we write. And guess what, it’s about WORLDVIEW! We all made 11 poems and created our own books revolving around worldview poems. Here’s a run through of all of the poems I wrote:

#1 – Similes

This Poem was pretty simple because it was the first poem we write. Pretty much, all we did was use similes to contrast with our worldview. For example, “As complicated as a maze” or “As simple as a recipe” or something not as cheesy.

#2 – Extended Metaphor

This Poem was almost as easy as the simile one. An extended metaphor is pretty much a long simile. You compare some part of your worldview (or the entire thing) to something you think best suits it. For me, I picked a water slide.

#3 – Haikus

Haikus are not hard. They’re pretty simple to write. Wait, I just wrote one! Ok, so for Haikus, we were tasked with creating more poetry about more aspects about your worldview. I picked playing the Oboe, Basketball, and homework. If you’ve read my about me page, then you’ll know why I picked these topics. If not, then what are you doing with your life? I’m just kidding, although you really should go read it if you want to understand the references that I make. Anyway, a haiku is pretty much a poem that follows the syllable pattern 5-7-5.

#4 – Found Poem

A found poem is a little difficult to write. It’s a poem made of passages that you take out of a piece of literature. First, you have to have the right literature. You should have a theme in mind before choosing your literature. Then, you have to selectively take out some passages that you think fit your theme. I was originally going to do mine on “Californiacation” by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, but because that has rhyming already, it was not allowed. So pretty much, I grabbed a random book and picked out some passages. That book turned out to be 1984 by George Orwell.

#5 – Imagery Poem

Imagery is when you try to incorporate descriptors in your literature that trigger the senses. Touch, taste, hear, sight, and smell. For example, “I walked along the dusty road, the rocks crackling under my shoes.” is an example of imagery. Our poem was, as you can probably guess, about appealing to the senses. Mine was about myself, walking down a dirty, dangerous alleyway. You can read the explanation in my book for further information.

#6 – Sound Poem

A Sound Poem is just a bunch of random noises that are somehow connected. I kid you not. Long story short, mine was just basketball noises because that’s probably the noisiest part of my worldview.

#7 – Experience Poem

An experience poem is, as the name suggests, a poem about an experience that you’ve had. The goal is to have a theme to the poem and to create effect. Mine was about a huge part of my life, Piano. Even though I’ve gone through way too many recitals, I decided to write about my first ever recital.

#8 – Personification

If you’ve studied poetry before in the slightest way, you’ll probably know what Personification is. It’s giving human-like qualities to a non human object or thing. In this case, our worldview. So pretty much, we imagined our worldviews as people. Pretty weird if you ask me.

#9 – Self Portrait

The point of this poem is to use all of the skills you’ve learned so far. We made a big, 25 line poem about ourselves and various aspects. We used a questioning sheet to brainstorm ideas and made those answers into poetry.

Alright, so that leads us to our final product. A big ol’ poetry book. And with that, I will leave you.

Jason’s Book Of Poems

Click to read this book, made with Book Creator

https://read.bookcreator.com

mPOLs

Hello loyal readers. Today I will be talking about mPOLs. Presentations of Learning. These are basically student led conferences where we discuss our work for the term, our blog posts, and how we can improve our work. The main question for the mPOLs is: How am I going to progress as a learner? To help answer this question, I will be reflecting about my main PLP classes, Maker, Humanities, Math And Science.

So, my first discussion topic is humanities. Our first ever unit for Humanities 8 was, as you can probably remember, the wonderful world of advertising. I feel that my ads for both Deep Cove And Oregon could have been better. I feel that my knowledge of advertising has grown a lot with this unit. My evidence for this is my advertising blog post.

The Advertising Project Of DOOM

Then, for worldview and religion, I also feel that I could have done better work. My Explain Everything was OK, but I think our infographic was pretty good. I think the thing that I want to work on the most for Humanities is to improve my study habits and time management. My evidence for this unit is my Religion and Worldview blog post.

Religions and Such

Okay. Now let’s move on to Maker. In Maker, I feel that my work has been pretty good. My growth mindset studies and my selfie project were both pretty good. I have learned a lot of information about growth mindset and I feel it has helped me develop a better growth mindset. The main problem for this unit was, as you can probably tell, time management. Some of my assignments were late, and my goal this term is for my assignments to be on time.

My Mindset And Me

Then, we did the big Star Wars Exhibition. I think that my exhibition project went pretty well. The big issue for me was definately time management. I feel that I could have used my time for the Exhibition much better. Overall, I think that I had a pretty nice, open-ended question and a newly discovered knowledge of prosthetics.

It’s a trap!

Now, onto math. I feel that I did pretty well in Math this year. My test and schoolwork have been pretty good and I have handed in my work on time. I think that our group did pretty well for our door surface area project and we both worked well together and we did a pretty good job handling anything that came our way. I think my main issue for math was that I rushed through some of the work. My goal for math is to spend more time thinking about my work and to go through it slowly instead of rushing.

My door is a bore no more

I think that my study habits were a little slow. My homework took pretty long and some assignments were late. The assignments were pretty good quality, but I think my main problem is speed and time management. To achieve this goal, I will give myself more time to do schoolwork and document all of my assignments for the day.

I think my revision has been pretty good. I have taken all of my critique constructively, and I have used it to make my work a lot better. My teamwork has also been pretty good for the past term. I have been pretty responsible in my groups and I have been working well with others.

Overall, my main issue in the past term is definately time management and getting my assignments in on time. I feel that I can improve my study habits by giving myself more time for homework and using my school time wiser. My main question for how I can improve myself is: What can I do to make sure all of my assignments get handed in on time?

My door is a bore no more

Hello fellow humans. This post is going to be about something I feel I don’t really write about in this blog. That’s right, it’s everyone’s favourite subject, Math.

Ok, so our first big project for math was a project that has to do with surface area. We were tasked with increasing the surface area of this door by 5.

I was put into a group with Izzy, Ben, and Kiera. What we did was we made a ton of rectangular prisms to increase the surface area by five. Here are our calculations.

We first decided to shrink them by half to save paper. Bad idea. That ended up messing up all of our calculations. After that colossal mess up, we had to start all over again and make all new, full size rectangular prisms. The end result ended up looking like this.

As you can tell, our groups’ stuff was the direct middle of the door. I personally think it looks pretty good. Welp. That’s it. See ya soon.

Religions and Such

Alright. Before I start, I want you all to know that this is going to be a looooong post. So, be prepared to spend at least a whopping 5 whole minutes reading about a socially awkward 8th grader’s journey through the wonderful world of religions.

Hi there again. It’s Jason. In this post, I will do my best to try to explain our latest unit, religion and worldview. So, when we started this unit, we learned about what a worldview is. It’s basically what the name suggests. Your view of the world. Of course, everyone’s worldview is different. This is what led to the first project of the unit, where we used a new app. The legendary Explain Everything. Long story short, the app was confusing. Our project was to pick three of these topics:

My three topics were Society, Values, and Knowledge. Then, you think of some stories about your 3 topics and talk about them in your EE (Explain Everything) with some pictures and animations.

After we finished the whole worldview stuff, we dove head-first into the wonderful and confusing world of religion. First we started with making new groups for a whole new project. I was put into a group with Nik, Grace, and Izzy. Our first religion that we studied was Aboriginal Spirituality, And we were tasked with making a chart of all of the religions that we studied. After Aboriginal Spirituality, we studied Judaism, then Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

After we finished our religion studies, we started on our main project. We were tasked with creating an infographic about a religion. More importantly, it was supposed to be about the worldview of the followers of that religion. First, we picked our religions. We picked Judaism as our religion to study. After we picked our religions, we wrote down what we knew about that religion and any important things that relate to the worldview. Then, we went on field studies to each of the holy places. We had to present our data to each of our respective religions. For us, it was the Synagogue. Also, we went to CHIPOTLE!

Here are some photos from our expeditions:

The Islamic Mosque

The Jewish Synagogue

The Hindu Temple

The Buddhist Temple

The Sikh Gurdwara

And Last but not least, The Christian Church

Then, we got to work on our infographics. Our original idea was for the background to be a desert, but it ended up looking like an old paper, so we changed the image. Then, we had to fix a text problem. The problem being that we had too much text, so we changed that. The app that we used to make our infographic was pages. We had many drafts and were critiqued multiple times on how we could improve it, and then we finally finished it.

We were pretty proud of our final draft and we were one of the first groups to finish our worldview/religion infographic. Here are some of the other groups’.

Ok. I guess that’s it. I hope you learned a lot about religion and worldview from the infographics that we made. I hope you enjoyed this post, and make sure to check out some of my other posts.

Yours Truly, Jason

Socially Awkward And Proud Of It

It’s a trap!

In a galaxy far, far away, Admiral Ackbar created one of the greatest Star Wars memes of all time with his groundbreaking phrase, It’s a Trap! I’m pretty sure you can figure out what this post is about.

So, if you keep up with the latest PLP activities, you probably know about the PLP Exhibition that happened a few days ago on the 14th Of December. Hopefully you came and saw our wonderful decorations and projects. If you didn’t, I’ll catch you up.

The Exhibition is kind of like a cooler science fair. There are 2 every year. A small one in December and a big one in June. For every Exhibition, the PLP teachers pick out a theme. For December’s, as you can probably tell, our theme was Star Wars. The students pick out a question each that relates to a topic. After they pick out a question, the students to hours of pain staking research to answer the question. Every student’s research must consist of 3 resources. A website, like Wikipedia, a video, and an interview with an expert in the field. This process all leads up to the Exhibition.

Now, let me tell you about my Exhibition experience. This Exhibition was really special to me and the other grade 8s because it was our first Exhibition. When we started working on the Exhibition, first of all, we had to pick an inquiry question. They told us to think of as many questions as possible about one single topic. After we brainstormed some questions, we picked out our top 3 to consult with the teacher about. Here is a list of my questions:

I then proceeded to have a conference about my questions, and I decided on the question “Would Star Wars cybernetics similar to Vaders’ Work in real life. After a bit of tweaking, I finally decided on a final question. My final inquiry question was, drumroll please,

HOW WOULD STAR WARS PROSTHETICS OR CYBERNETICS WORK IN REAL LIFE?

So, after I figured out my inquiry question, I got started on my research. I started on my website research first, and found this great website called wookieepedia, which is basically like a Star Wars database. Link to wookieepedia right here. On said website, I found a page about prosthetics or, as they’re called in the Star Wars universe, Cybernetics. That was the main website that I used for research. Finding a video was even easier. All it took was a quick search on YouTube to find the perfect video. The video that I used was called Star Wars Science – Prosthetic Limbs by HelloGreedo. Link down here. ⬇️

I really liked this one because it compared both Star Wars and real life, and goes into in depth detail of each aspect. And lastly, I interviewed someone from Pentlands Prosthetics and Orthotics. Pentlands is a company that specializes in Prosthetics and fits people with custom Prosthetics that best fit the recipient. Unfortunately, I had really lousy timing and emailed them during a very busy period and wasn’t able to schedule an actual face to face meeting. Even though they were busy, they agreed to answer some questions that I had about prosthetics.

After we all finished our research, the PLP teachers revealed our groupings. The Light and Dark sides. We then got grouped into smaller groups. I was on the Dark Side and in the Impact on Today’s World group.

Armed with my knowledge of prosthetics, I got started on creating my project. I went and made a big ol’ prosthetic hand model. Long story short, it ended up looking like a statue.

I built it out of plasticine, which is probably why it looks like a statue. I was going for a robotic look, but I ended up getting a modern art feel to it. I also made a posterboard. Yes, a posterboard. A staple of all middle school science fairs worldwide. My posterboard was pretty horrible to begin with. It looked like this.

Yeah. Pretty bad. After getting pelted with criticism, I went home and used that criticism to improve my posterboard. The next day, I came back with my posterboard looking like this:

Much, much better. Don’t you agree? Alright, let’s cut to what you’ve all been waiting for. The night of the Exhibition. Exhibition day was pretty stressful. Not gonna lie. We spent nearly the whole day decorating our respective spaces, with the Light Side occupying the PLP room and the Dark Side occupying the Library. First of all, our main problem was light. We had to turn all of the lights in the library off, so we all had to bring as many lights as we could. Our second issue was the walls. I’d say about half of the time we spent decorating the room was on putting paper all over the walls to cover up the fact that it was a library. The rest all fell into place after we finished those things. Then, in a flash, it was Exhibition night. Not gonna lie, I was pretty nervous. That and the fact that I had way too much pizza before the Exhibition was a deadly combo. I had worn a sick Darth Vader mask to the Exhibition.

That did not work out very well though because A: I didn’t have the full costume so I looked like Darth Vader at an employee picnic, and B: The mask gave me absolutely no peripheral vision at all.When the people started rolling in, I got myself together and gave some presentations to the people that came over to look at my project. Halfway through, I went and ran the bar. We served “Vaderade”, which was pretty much a mix of Red Powerade and Gatorade. We also had some assorted snacks. Overall, I’d say the Exhibition went pretty well. One thing I would do differently would be to manage my time better. I didn’t make full use of my time. Next time I’m definitely going to get started constructing much faster.

OK. That’s it. Whew. I hope you didn’t get too bored reading that. It was a pretty fun experience and I have high hopes for the big one in June. Make sure to be on the lookout for my next post on religion.

Yours Truly, Jason

Living, Breathing, Pinterest Fail

Night Of The Living PICKLE

Hey! Guess what! I made a horror movie……trailer. But still, it was pretty good. Take a look at it here:

Horror Movie Trailer

So, we made this movie trailer with iMovie. The monster was my amazing pickle Rick outfit, and my group consisted of myself, Nik, Izzy, and Grace.

Make sure to be on the lookout for Night Of The Living Pickle 2: The Repickling.

Until Next Time Jason Guan

World Renowned Pickle Actor

Scary Things

Greetings, earthlings. Commander Jason here. Today, I’m going to be talking about my favourite holiday, Halloween. But before we start, I want to make a request. If possible, I’d like you all to play spooky scary skeletons while you read. Does that sound OK? Alright. So sit down, buckle up, and prepare for a spoooooooky ride. Oh wait! I almost forgot. Here’s a special Halloween meme.

So, the thing is, this post isn’t something we all have to do. I’m just gonna write for you, my faithful readers, because I love Halloween. And also because I’m bored. So, without further ado, prepare to hear about my favourite time of the year, (sorry Christmas) Halloween.

So, first on the ol’ agenda is costumes. For Halloween, I am going to be everyone’s favourite pickle, Pickle Rick. If you do not know who that is, you’re living under a rock. Seriously. Watch Rick And Morty. My pickle rick costume is supposed to look like this.

Unfortunately, I’m not exactly the best at arts and crafts, so my costume is probably going to end up looking like this.

What are you going to be for Halloween? Oh man, I sound like the guy who plays the main character in a kid’s show. But seriously, feel free to leave a comment below telling me what you’re being for Halloween.

Next, let’s talk about decorations. My family and I do not put up decorations because there are basically no kids in my hood. Also, no one visits me. I’d ask you, the reader, to come over, but I really don’t feel comfortable sharing my address online.

Finally, let’s talk about the fuel of the fifth grader, candy. I like candy. You can probably tell. If you have read my about me page, you should know that my favourite candies are skittles and airheads. Unfortunately for me, those are two of the rarest candies that people hand out. Getting an airhead while trick or treating is about as rare as Emerson going one day without eating a muffin. Yeah. Think about that for a second. I’d hand out airheads and skittles is people actually trick or treated in my neighbourhood, but they don’t. Too bad. Also, feel free to comment your favourite type of candy in the comment section.

Alright. That wraps up my spooooky post. I hope you enjoyed this post. Make sure to comment down below your Halloween costume and your favourite candy for a chance to win a special Jason’s Special Halloween Prize Pack! Just kidding. You don’t actually get a prize pack. But if you comment, you will recieve a special, handwritten reply from yours truly. Alright. See you amigos next time.

Until Next Time, Jason Guan

AKA The Spooky Pickle