Looking back to the middle of May, our class dove into the topic of music and its connections to history—specifically the Vietnam War and Marvin Gaye. We have since moved on from this topic, though I continually find myself considering the question, “can music be a historical source when researching?”

During this whole quarter, there has been plenty of research. This research typically stemmed from an in-class lecture as I always want to find out further information on the topic. My initial response is always to google the topic and find either an article or a video that can explain the subject to me in an uncomplicated way. This is great and all but most of the time it is all just factual information and doesn’t provide first-hand experience or perspectives from a primary source. While a general understanding is helpful (knowing what, where, who), a sophisticated understanding requires more. “More” is discovering the overall feel of the time and knowing society’s response to the event during the time. This “more” is important to understanding history on a level past information fed to you.

Using our in-class example, the Vietnam War, we gained a new perspective on the war by listening to albums like Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?”. This album provided us with a unique lens that put our 2021 selves in the shoes of those who watched the Vietnam War go down in real-time. This lens through music is personal, honest, and historical; one that presents feelings no typed words can.

Our Marvin Gaye class inspired a train of thought I’ve carried with me since… Why is music made during the years of an event not more commonly used as a source to examine the emotions and society’s opinions of that time? I feel like everything, BUT music, is used when analyzing an event. Clothing, language, architecture, people, places, and the economics of the time are all things I’ve noticed are significantly picked at when looking back on history. I.e. “how what they wore during _______ represents _____,” “how their choice of language and expression shows historians this ______,” etc. I rarely see “how this album produced during ______ reflects societies feelings toward ______.” Music isn’t being used to its full potential! Music has so much to analyze; the lyrics, the tone, the culture surrounding it, the target audience, the popularity of the song, society’s response to the music, etc.

I researched this topic of music being used as a historical source and found an interesting article. Something that stood out to me is the following quote.

“The best historical work attends to the specificity of music even as it widens the field of analysis to include its social, political and ideological contexts.”

I agree with this, and I feel reading and watching videos feeds you info to understand what happened, while the music provides you with something less solid. It allows you to analyze it yourself, ultimately putting yourself in the artist’s shoes at the time. Music offers a deeper understanding of history. It is a valuable primary source that I think is not utilized enough.

I felt this was worthy of sharing here because it is a reminder to myself that from now on, I will use music the same way I do articles and videos. I feel my understanding will reach a new level, furthermore benefitting my education.

This week, the topic is terrorism. We have dived right in analyzing many specific examples, perspectives, and questions surrounding this difficult and disturbing topic. I decided for today’s post I wanted to focus on fewer facts and explanations and more on my learning outcome—the ideas and questions I’m left with.

A significant concept that has stuck out to me during the week’s discussions is how reliant terrorists are on media coverage.

Terrorists need the media to receive free publicity for their cause, spread their messages, and to gain support and recognition. For terrorism to gain the public attention the terrorists are seeking, media needs to play a part—and terrorists know that. The more shocking and disturbing an event is, the more the news and media will cover it. Reporting on terrorism equals money in news channels pockets as nothing is truly more attention-grabbing than death. Nothing is more mind-consuming than a catastrophe.

This notion of “nothing is truly more attention-grabbing than death” has consumed my mind lately. That means lots of time in the Luca brain to reminisce on the concept.

What I’ve come up with is that I believe this concept is continuing a cycle. I’ll try to explain. In simple terms, terrorists need their acts to have media coverage.  News outlets have the precedent of always doing that exactly. It makes sense; their job is to inform the public’s on the topic, and it makes them money. What we see here is a mutually beneficial relationship between terrorism and today’s media. That relationship, in my opinion, is very dangerous. It supports the cycle of terrorist acts being committed. Terrorists know the news will cover their actions, and that is why we are seeing so many unmerciful terrorist acts. It is due to that awareness of free publicity.

While reading around other’s thoughts on this relationship of terrorism and media, I found a quote that correctly put what I was trying to say into words. The quote is from this article linked here, told by a man named Hoffman.

“Without the media’s coverage, the act’s impact is arguably wasted, remaining narrowly confined to the immediate victim(s) of the attack, rather than reaching the wider’ target audience’ at whom the terrorists’ violence is actually aimed.”

This quote is essentially saying terrorists are more interested in the audience than the actual victims. Strategic preparation is done on where and when their terrorist act should happen as they want to make sure it has the most potential media coverage. When I say media coverage, I’m not talking about an essential five-minute section on the news informing the public of what, where, why and when. I’m talking about the aftermath of media coverage. Big clickbait titles, the repetition of stories, graphic images, and fighting on who is to blame–The media profits from the drama terrorism creates. The profit may seem harmless, but it is not. It pushes the intended impact of the terrorism down the public’s throat so they can never, ever, ever, forget it, therefore benefitting the terrorists.

This cycle of terrorism and the media feeding off of it is dangerous and only encourages more terrorism. I believe the media must become more aware of their impact as is a good news story really worth possible encouragement for future terrorism?My question ill leave you all with is… If there was a limit on the media’s coverage of terrorism, would we see less terrorism?

Over the past three weeks, PLP has taken the class through a route of historical events. Not just any historical event/topic, only ones which were societal turning points worldwide; Ones too significant to forget. From 9/11 to the Cuban Missile Crisis, we touched on influential events that always end up revealing quite a bit about society, human nature, and power.

To give some context, the specific events we touched on were the New Deal, the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK Assassination, the Introduction to Birth Control, Watergate, the Fall of Saigon, Iran Hostage Crisis, 9/11, and the Creation of the iPhone. We learned, discussed, and studied these turning points looking for answers to our questions. Questions like how did these events and the decisions and actions in them significantly transform people’s lives? How did they narrow or eliminate choices for people? To find answers to these and form new questions, we had to research in-between and surrounding topics that stemmed from the original topic. One google search wasn’t ever sufficient—multiple sources, deep thinking, questions, and writing down our perceptions and concepts in our Zettlekasten were vital.

So, what? Why am I telling you this? Well, I’ve had a train of thought since day 1 of this quarter. It may seem ridiculous, or maybe even ignorant, but that doesn’t stop me from asking it.

Why doesn’t America mind its own business?

Bold, I know. Let me explain. 

This question began during the Cuban Missile Crisis class lecture. This terrifying six-day portion of the Cold War all stemmed from the Bay of Pigs. The Bay of Pigs was essentially caused by America feeling vulnerable due to Cuba’s new Prime Minister Fidel Castro’s anti-Americanism. This lead to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which caused an almost nuclear war. It’s a long story and too little time to explain, but the concept I got out of it all is what matters. Why did America care so much? Yes, there are actual valid reasons why America cared. For example…

 

1) Castros goal of removing American power from Cuba

2) Cuba’s close relationship with America’s enemy, the Soviet Union

3) Simply the fear America felt about Cuba, a country so close to them becoming communist and it possibly spreading 

 

Even with solid explanations of why America did what they did, I still find myself asking, was it worth all of this? Was America’s fear of Castro, Cuba, and communism really worth an almost nuclear war? In my opinion, no. Why did they feel the need to budge their heads into something they could have just ignored? Yes, there are negatives to ignoring something like the whole Castro/Cuba situation, but in this situation I think America should have minded their own business.

You may disagree with me, but I have more examples to hopefully convince you with. 

This second topic came from our lecture on the Fall of Saigon, the case being The Vietnam/American War. Quick overview of this War—America felt once again vulnerable to a country using their power in a way they disagree with (communism). The U.S. believed that if one state fell into communism, the rest would follow. A sort of domino theory perspective. While yes, this theory was correct to a point (neighbouring countries of Vietnam becoming communist), it never affected the U.S. There was no global catastrophe like LBJ (President of America at the time) predicted. America’s alliances never became communists, and the world moved on. The only catastrophe was the 2 million American and Vietnamese lives lost in this war. 

See what I’m getting at here? The question of, was this war really necessary? Did America really need to get involved in one countries decision of how to handle power and nation control? Was this fear of communism worth this all? In my opinion, no. Also, don’t even get me started on the political aspect of this war and how that influenced LBJ’s decisions. America is so dramatic. I mean, every country is, but in these historical topics, I notice it most in America. 

I can provide so many more connections and evidence to support this question of “why doesn’t America mind its own business,” including topics connected to 9/11, the Iran Hostage Crisis, Birth Control, and more! However, this post can only share so much, and I feel the points I made can hopefully represent the point I was trying to get across. 

To end it off, the last point I want to make is that no, America has not learned from this all and started minding their own business. There are, to this day, still troops in Afghanistan fighting for something completely unrelated to America.

Side note: Why I told you so much info initially that may have seemed irrelevant is because it is the basis of a lot of my future posts on here. Every week or so, I will be documenting some connection, interest, or knowledge I’ve gained through the week—most relating to those big topics I mentioned. The future posts will be shorter and easier to glide through; this one is just an intro on this quarter + discussing my question. See you all next week!

During class this week, my teacher scrolled through a basecamp post called “A Woman’s Place today.” At the bottom of the post there was some info that really caught my eye and that I wanted to learn more about.

“Recent labour market statistics in the United States for the month of September show that the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted everyone—however, of the 1.1 million people who left the job market in September, more than 860,000 were women.”

 

Below that text, there was a link to a NPR podcast called “How More Women Than Men Are Being Impacted By The Recession” where they evaluated the situation/evidence and provided a possible explanation to why women are being so greatly effected, more than men. This post is going to break down the podcast and share my thoughts on it.

They tell a woman, Cassie Gaffer’s story. She shares that she finally finished her dental schooling, which is a gruelling and intense few years. She started working, and loved it. When COVID arrived in March, the practice closed as a part of the mandated shut down. Not only did her work close, her daughters daycare and school did too. She became a stay at home mom for the time. When the lockdown loosened up and essential services like dentistry opened up, she was offered her job back and she had to say no. Her husband went back to work, and she stayed home as that’s what made most sense for her family. There needed to be a parent at home as daycare and in class school wasn’t an option anymore.

According to Martha Gimble, a economist at Schmitt Futures who studies the labour market, “this is the case for millions of women around America right now.” The problem is right now, women are given very little choice’s compared to before the pandemic. The pandemic took away the choices women had, leaving them with no freedom to decide what they want. They can’t send there kids to school, someone has to supervise the learning, do the cooking, the cleaning, and those roles are falling on women. But why?

1. CULTURAL PRESIDENT: While things have changed immensely for women, in heterosexual relationships, these roles (childcare and housework) still tend to fall more on the woman in the relationship.

2. ECONOMICAL DECISIONS: Because women generally get paid less then men, if the couple is making an economic decision, it makes more sense for the women to drop there work compared to the man.

In result of these things, women in the workforce numbers have been the lowest its been decades. Studies show that women who take time from the workforce have a harder time getting back in. They are losing experiences that help them move forward like promotions, building skills that will help future employers pay you more.

In class we’ve been discussing past decades from the 40s to now, and the topic of women in the workplace were mentioned in almost all of them. What surprised me most about this podcast, is that this unfair president thats set on women, is still there. It just surprises me when I study something how much woman lives have changed over the years, yet I still see unfair stats like this. COVID has brought up issues that we all thought were fixed. The pandemic is having a devastating effect on gender equality and could set women back decades, which is why it’s a very important topic to discuss. Read this article here if you want to learn more about this topic. 

Ok ok this post isn’t actually 10 things I learnt, but let me explain. This week in English 12 we are continuing our reading of “Taming of the Shrew.” TOTS (Taming of the Shrew) is a play written by Shakespeare, and falls into the category of “comedy” compared to “tragedy” because it ends with marriage… Anyways, TOTS is basically about (in a Luca brain interpretation) a crew of people in Italy in the Elizabethan times trying to get this crazy women Kate married so her pretty yet shallow sister Bianca, could be married. Katherine aka Kate is this wild and untamed woman who is at the time labeled a “shrew.” A shrew basically meant what Kate was. A wild, untamed woman. Any women in the Elizabethan time had standards and expectations to follow, and if they didn’t, they were labeled a shrew. Anyways, this post isn’t just about the fact I learnt what a shrew is, it’s about a connection I made mid class one day.

“10 Things I Hate About You is just another version of Taming of the Shrew” said someone in my class a few days ago. I instantly was intrigued as that is a movie I really enjoy, and have seen quite a few times. I immediately was shocked and did some googling, and that person was right. I should have known that, as the main character in TOTS, Katherine Minola is the shrew who refuses to follow the standards of woman that her father and just any man expects for her to follow. The main character in 10 Things is Kat Stratford who is the crazy, goofy, and wild teenage girl who refuses to act a certain way to impress teenage boys, and just like Katherine, ends up being “tamed” by a man.

With further research, most characters and the overall story line of both Taming of the Shrew and 10 Things I Hate About You line up almost perfectly. Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith, the writers of 10 Things, did an amazing job at turning a Shakespeare play into a modern day story about teenagers. Despite the very different settings the two works of fiction take place in, certain things remain constant, such as the ways the characters are portrayed and perceived.

Some themes that really match up in both pieces of work is the actual taming of the shrew (Katherine or Kat in this case.) Kat Stratford, Katherina Minola’s counterpart, is rarely taken seriously and constantly mocked, while Patrick Verona, Petruchio’s counterpart, is looked up to as a model of masculinity and admired for his ability to tame the shrew, or at least make her fall for him. You’d think that taming of wilder women is such a 1500’s thing to do, but I watched this 1990’s movie and didn’t think twice.

I can’t explain all the connection as this post would be 1000+ words, but there was countless connections and this video right below helps show them.

Why I wanted to make this post is because it correlates with our classes discussion of continuity and change, and how it’s kind of ironic how we can recreate a 1500’s story in the 1990’s and have it be quite, well, realistic. Obviously women rights have moved forward for the good, but the theme of “taming” a “wild women” is seen in both TOTS and 10 things (500 years apart!!!) Which brings us to the question, why does society feel the need to “tame” women?

The past few months my class and I have been diving deep into the civil rights movement in America in the 50s/60s. This is fitting, as right now we are seeing the world uprise against similar things that the civil rights movement fought for. Still, in 2020 we are seeing issues that relate straight back to the ’50s and 60’s civil rights movement. The Black Lives Matter movement started in 2013 but has been brought to the frontlines of media even more right now. In this post I’m going to talk about two murders of black Americans who’s story’s are parallel, and what we can do to help stop this.

On August 28, 1955, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American was murdered by Roy Bryant and J.W Milam. Till was on a trip with his cousins in Mississippi, and while at a country store (similar to a now convenience store) he was accused of “flirting” with the woman working at the store.
He continued on with his trip, but a few days went missing, and a few days after that, he was found dead floating in the Tallahatchie River. He was murdered by the woman’s husband and his half brother. Authorities wanted to bury the body quickly and hide all of what had happened but Till’s mother, Mamie Bradley, insisted on having the body sent back to Chicago, where Mamie and Emmett lived. She had an open casket funeral because he was so brutally mutilated, she wanted everyone and the media to see him and how he died. This was the closest thing at the time to something now going viral online nowadays. Mamie got it in multiple newspapers, and everyone saw pictures of Till’s 14-year-old body mutilated. A lot of America was shocked. Till’s murderers were never charged, even after his mother brought it to court. Emmett Till’s murder was one of the first events that forced society to look at the brutality that black Americans face. Till became an icon of the civil rights movement.

On May 25, 2020, the world was struck by a video of a 46-year-old black man named George Floyd, being murdered by a police officer. George Floyd was arrested outside a convenience store in Minneapolis, Minnesota because some accused of him using a counterfeit 20 dollar bill and called the cops on him. Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes while Floyd was handcuffed face-down on pavement repeatedly saying “I can’t breathe”. Three other officers were on scene, holding back the public from helping Floyd. Floyd died, on the ground, begging for his life. While some people see this as a police officer doing his job, anyone with a working brain sees it as an incredibly brutal murder to an innocent black man. All of this was filmed and brought to the media, for all the world to see. This sparked a fire in everyone around the world, fighting for the movement Black Lives Matter.

1955, 2020, 64 years apart. Emmett Till and George Floyd’s murders were in different decades, yet remind us of the brutal problems in America (Canada isn’t innocent either I’m just talking about America right now). Floyd and Till’s murders are parallel. History is repeating, and the world is NOT having it. Since Floyd’s murder, protests, riots, petitions, resources, and so much more have been flooding our lives via the media due to the issues of racism and social injustice in America. The BLM movement has had more progress in the past 2 weeks than in the past 7 years. The video of George Floyd being murdered captured generations of injustice and brutality that black people face and the world is trying to help to stop this. Police and white Americans murdering black Americans has been a regular occurrence since forever,  but now it’s being filmed more than ever and shared online, which is an amplification of Emmett Till’s funeral. Floyd’s and Till’s murders have been society’s tipping points. But how many tipping points do there have to be until things change?

“If you stick a knife nine inches into my back and pull it out three inches, that is not progress. Even if you pull it all the way out, that is not progress. Progress is healing the wound, and America hasn’t even begun to pull out the knife. They won’t even admit it’s there.”—Malcolm X

As long as America runs on a white system, things like this will continue to happen. Emmett Till and George Floyd are proof of this. It’s been 64 years but now we are seeing murders and violence towards black Americans DAILY because everyone has a camera and it is now being captured. Actually seeing the violence and horror with their eyes is waking people up.

Why I’m bringing this up is because I want this blog post to be a reminder of what’s going on right now, and what HAS been going on, and share some resources to how we can help. Floyd and Till are just two of the thousands of black Americans that have been brutalized and murdered in the past 64 years. I’m going to link here a website made by a 17-year-old student in the states. It has a few sections and links where you can sign petitions, donate, and educate yourself.

Hi blog! Oh how I’ve missed you. How’s the pandemic going for you? Anyways, that’s not what this post is about. It’s about atomic habits! Ive posted a few posts on this book, here’s two of them linked here and here. Check them out if you have no idea what atomic habits is! Understanding the book, author, and habits will help make this post easier to understand! Lets get into this post…

For this PGP assignment we were given this awesome opened ended project. Ms. Maxwell made a cool visual for us students to use and guide our project. Ill put a pic here, and explain a little.

 

It consists of 3 curricular competencies, and how we should show our knowledge. As I said earlier, it’s super open ended. You could choose any of the boxes, and recommended to follow it in a horizontal line (as each box is connected to each other in that way) but of course, in Luca fashion I didn’t fully follow that (sorry Ms. Maxwell!) I chose to do these ones in the pic below this text.I chose those 3 because it felt the most natural towards my project. At first I was following just the middle row, but I felt the first two boxes in last row fitted my project best as I adapted and revised it. Anyways, these boxes inspired my project, and I’m going to go through each box and show my journey of making my final product! (A daily calendar adapted to the habits.)

THINK

“Summarize the 4 laws of atomic habits.” At first, I had decided to do the middle row box, but as I started creating my calendar I realized I could include not just ONE but ALL of the habits in it. So, I went with this box. I could go and summarize all of the habits, but past Luca did a great job at doing that in my Atomic Habits blog post. Instead, I’m going to talk about the importance of them.

So, when I first started reading atomic habits back in January, I was like hopefully this book will leave me smarter and more organized, and to my surprise, it actually did. I’m a organized person and I have a lot of techniques and routines to get stuff done, but never really though about why or why not they work. This book solidified ideas I had floating around my head, and deepened my understanding of my work habits. Connecting it to the competency THINK “how do I make choices, question decisions, and develop habits to support achievement” this book helped me with those exact statements. The book made me really focus and break down what I’m doing, and how I’m doing it. How I make the choices I do, how I question my decisions and how I develop habits to support achievement. The book basically revised my ways of thinking, and the product I made for this product is psychical evidence of my deep understanding of the book.

 

ACT

“Create a tool for you and your friends to use in the future that demonstrates a thorough and thoughtful understanding of your topic.” So, as I mentioned, I created a calendar. Woohoo calendar, I know… But, this ones special, and it’s adapted to help support and organize a busy teenagers brain. I’m a procrastinator as we all know, and I’ve noticed I consistently leave all my assignments to the weekend. So I made a sort of Sunday calendar. I called it that at first because Sunday’s are my homework day, but because of corona, everyday is kind of a Sunday. My days are basically empty besides calls and seeing friends, so I just end up designating a day or two to all my assignments, so I made the calendar surrounding that habit because that’s how my brain works. Regular calendars just don’t work for my busy daily life. They are good for overall weekly plans, but for those long work days they just don’t work.

Anyways, I wanted the calendar to be something I could fill out and plan the day before a very busy workday. I find myself having a way more successful work day when my day is laid out the night before, so I highlighted that and removed the long and painful time where I’m moping around in the morning being stressed and confused on what I have to do that day. As I was developing the calendar, I was focusing on the law “make it attractive” as the calendar is all about making the busy day less scary and stressful, but as I developed and revised it I noticed I could attach a habit to each part of the calendar. Ill show my calendar draft here, and you can see the pink highlighted parts are where I show the connection to the laws.

Half of the calendar is to be written the night before, and the other half is to complete during the day. I’m going to break down the four parts of the calendar and the laws connected to it.

PART 1 (MAKE IT EASY): To do list. This is the make it easy habit, as it’s there to do the night before so the next day is easier. As I talked about before, I have a more successful work day if I have it laid out for me when I wake up. It makes everything easier to focus on. There’s no worry of “oh what is due?” “What do I have to do?” “Do I do this today or tomorrow?” It removes the stress. During the day you check off the boxes, which also connects to MAKE IT SATISFYING, as what’s more satisfying than checking off some boxes, am I right? Also, I added a cool little feature where there’s 3 colours to colour in the check box (you do this while writing the list the night before.) Each colour shows you how long (approximately) each thing will take. I like this feature as it helps me know what I should get done first, as well as showing me how long everything will approximately take all added up.

PART 2 (MAKE IT ATTRACTIVE): Nightly checklist. This is pre written, and has 3 key things that I feel are very helpful to a successful day. I don’t know about you, but If I wake up to a clean room, clothes folded ready to put on, and a to do list already pre written, I’m more likely to actually do my work then if I wake up all unorganized and stressed. This makes the day more attractive, which is why that’s the law I connected this part to.

PART 3 (MAKE IT OBVIOUS): Goals for tomorrow + one thing you’re proud of yourself for doing in the day. The goal is the part connected to the law, as make it obvious is all about breaking and setting habits. It’s a place to set a small goal for the next day. It’s not meant for big things like “raise your math mark by 10 percent” its meant for things like “stay off phone when doing homework” or “get work done before 5:00 pm.” It’s to help set goals/habits, and the proud of yourself part is either for just something like “I’m proud of myself for getting out of bed on time today” or, if you used the calendar the day before you could say “I followed my new habit of staying off my phone during homework.” I wanted to include something like this in my calendar so it makes it more meaningful, and it’s also a place to give yourself some self love by talking about what you’re proud of.

PART 4 (MAKE IT SATISFYING): This the space where you get to reward yourself after your hard day of working. You can write the thing like “watch a movie” or “hangout with friends” either in the morning, or just when something you want to do pops up in your head. I leave it blank until I’m working on my to do’s, as ill be sitting doing homework and Ill think ah I wish I could play some animal crossing on my Nintendo switch right now, and instead of giving into that craving, ill write it down as my reward so once all my to do’s are done, I get to do what I want. This is connected to the law make it satisfying as after a long day of working hard, you get to reward yourself, and that is beyond satisfying.

I’m really proud of this calendar, and I know it’ll help me and my friends out in our busy lives. As I mentioned before, the circular competency for this part is reflect, “How do I create and demonstrate thorough and thoughtful understanding.” And I fully believe I showed my understanding of the laws in this calendar.

 

REFLECT

This part of the tic tac toe board is basically this blog post, but it also requires you to talk about how you plan to move forward with atomic habits. That question fits into my project well, as my creation was a tool that I actually use. I printed out many many copies of this calendar onto thick card-stock and stapled it together into a little book. This is so I have nice paper copies to continue to use. I’ve given some friends some copies too (Adlih and Isy) and I know they will use it as they helped me revise and develop this calendar. The task was to make a tool for me and my friends to use to continue our use of atomic habits, so that’s what I did, and I’m very proud of the outcome! I put a big clear copy of the calendar at the beginning of this post, so if you want, you can screenshot it and print out to use for yourself!

Hi blog. Today’s post is PGP based. The topic for this post is James Clear. James Clear is the same author that wrote atomic habits. Remember, the post I made about the book? It was an awesome book and I’m glad that we’re continuing on talking about it. For this post, we were assigned to read an article from his website and connect it to our life. He has hundreds of articles about everything and anything to do with goals, habit, etc. Basically anything to help you do and feel good . The selection is great because everyone in the class can find an article that connects and relates to them. So, what article did I choose?

Procrastination: A Scientific Guide on How to Stop Procrastinating.

Of course I picked an article about procrastination… If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know I am the procrastination queen. No matter what I do, or how I do it, I will always put it off late. It never affects the quality level, it’s just annoying. I will put something off until it is literallyI mpossible to put off any longer. I decided to read this article because well sometimes I’ll get better at avoiding procrastinating, I still struggle and I think reading about procrastination, and actually learning about the causes of it, may help me.

The first line from this article says someone that immediately I relate to, “How to make those rare moments of productivity more routine.” Thats spot on what I want and need, especially in times like this. Being honest, this whole online school thing and being home all the time, doesn’t really work well for me. Im still hard working, but that determination starts to fade when I’m not actually going to school. Being home all day is literally ideal for me to procrastinate. I will do anything but what I have to. Yesterday I vacuumed my room, and all of the house, without being asked to by my mom, just to avoid doing this blog post. Anyways, let’s continue.

“Akrasia is the state of acting against your better judgment. It is when you do one thing even though you know you should do something else. Loosely translated, you could say that akrasia is procrastination or a lack of self-control.”

Akrasia is a word that ancient Greek philosophers used before the word “procrastination.”

That definition stuck with me and honestly was a reminder that yes, it is just basically a self control issue. The overall article basically sums up what procrastination is, and then gives some tips to how to deal with it. So, what is it? Behavioural psychology research has revealed a phenomenon called “time inconsistency,” which helps explain procrastination. Us humans like short fast rewards, not long term.

He talks about how a lot of us go to bed with the motivation to get started on something, or do finish something, but then wake up unmotivated and fall into old patterns. This is because our brain VALUES long term benefits when they are in the future (the next morning in this case) but when the future actually comes (when you wake up) you then value the immediate gratification of not doing it more than the long term goal. This is really really helpful for me to learn, because I find myself in the future stage and present stage a lot (relating to this example) and I know for a fact when I’m in that future stage, and I tell myself oh yes I’ll do that tomorrow, I know I probably won’t. Which is really bad, and why I believe the best time for me to do work is when I’m actually in that future stage and have the motivation. I find the time I have best motivation is when someone is JUST assigned, and the reason I never do it then is because I’ll have a week or so to do the assignment and I think “oh yes I have a lot of time, no need to do it now” even if I have that motivation. Then, I end up doing it the morning of all stressed out.

At that point I’ve past the action line, and my motivation is purely terror to get it in. The guilt and fear and anxiety I feel when procrastinating is actually worse than the energy and dedication I have to put in when doing the assignment. The problem is not doing the work, it’s starting the work.

My goal for this post wasn’t necessarily to find a new way to help me to stop procrastinating (I feel like I’ve tried a lot of things and wanted to come at a new approach) it was more to learn about why I procrastinate, so I can tackle those issues personally, instead of using someone else’s method. I feel some (some!!! Not all) methods are just a Band-Aid but then I get bored of them and I go back to procrastinating. Learning about it, I feel will be more beneficial. Before this article, I barely knew what it meant besides the fact it’s avoiding to do work, so I’m grateful this was an assignment as I know this knowledge has made me change the way I look at procrastination and the way I think.

My ”adjusted to corona times” goal for the rest of the school year, is get stuff started and finished right when it’s assigned and I have that brief amount of motivation, as starting it is always the hardest part. I don’t have that 3:00 after school motivation anymore to set my goals on!

Being honest, grade 10 was crazy. Crazy in a crazy way. Lots of ups and downs, and lots of new lessons being learned. I’m walking out of this year as a stronger student. So, what happened this year that makes me feel this way? 

 

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST THING I TOOK AWAY FROM THIS YEAR? 

My goal since grade eight has been to find a balance between my school work and personal life. Every single presentation like this one I have mentioned that specific goal. This has been one of the most frustrating and confusing things I’ve dealt with. This year I started growing a better understanding on how to actually handle and achieve this goal which made solving it way simpler. So, what do I mean by all of this? 

I’ve been so stuck on this question I’ve made for myself about balance, I never thought deeply about what I’m actually asking from myself. I’d say PGP taught me this but it more inspired me to just THINK, I needed to think more. The task of making sure you have a perfectly balanced life is pretty impossible. Life, school, and everything else in between is unpredictable and completely unfair. But its okay! It’s not about making sure If perfectly balanced, its how you deal with the work when it comes to you. When things come at me in every which way, it’s about the mindset you’re in, organization you have, and your determination level. Once you’ve done that, it’s important to respect yourself when you’re working. The process of creating is just as important as the end product. This is where the balance comes in, if you get your work done in an enjoyable and stress free way, then the work side of life doesn’t feel so heavy. 

WHAT AM I PROUD OF AND WHY

I created quite a few artifacts this year that I’m really proud of but these 3 really stand out to me because they all remind me of important things. I think its important to look at your strengths just as much as things you should improve on as this creates a healthy perspective on yourself. Make sure you’re improving, but also reflect on the good and appreciate your hard work! At least for me!

OVERCOMING FEAR: WW2 podcast. As everyone knows, I strongly dislike interviewing people. It’s been something that has scared me since I can remember. I get this weird sick nervous feeing when I talk to new people, and it’s not something I can control, but it’s something I can fight. That’s why this project was a big milestone for me. Emily and I drove out to Port Moody to interview a WW2 veteran named Svend!

When we were assigned this I instantly was like yeah I’ll just get my other group members to do it, I’ll find a way out of it. But as the time to interview him came closer I became clearer than If I don’t go, we wont have an interview. So after many conversations with Ms. Maxwell and my mom, I decided to go. I was so nervous but I knew it would be ok, and it was. He was a lovely man and it was a great experience. The end product of this podcast is something I’m very proud of and I know I wouldn’t be happy with it If I hadn’t gone out of my comfort zone and done the interview. 

 

PERSISTENCE: Phone plan project: This project seemed pretty normal in the beginning but when I tell you I was wrong, I was so wrong. For some reason this math messed with my head and it took me weeks to understand it. Asking questions, revising, drafts, etc…. I spent quite a few nights trying to take all this data from real world situations and form in into a well made math project. I genuinely had never been prouder of myself once I presented my project and had done all the math correctly. I persevered and I never gave up even when I was confused and frustrated and that is why I’m proud of this project.

 

A DRIVE TO CREATE: Movie trailer: I talked about this project in my last MPOL, but I’m just going over it one more time because it genuinely is my favourite thing I’ve ever made. I went into this project with such a strong drive to create something I am happy with. I wrote the script, filmed, directed, and edited the whole trailer, and was totally happy with doing all of it. I felt in my element during this project and I think the director role in projects is somewhere where I thrive because I honestly enjoy what I’m doing. We also had a large amount of creative freedom which also contributes to the fact that I really enjoyed this project. I hope in the future I get to do more projects like this. 

GRADE 11 GOAL

As PLP is only 2/8 of my classes next year, I need to make sure I take all the tools I learned in the last three years of PLP into regular classes like pre-calc, econ, and even things like art and yearbook! Just because I don’t have my PLP teachers making sure I’m getting where I want to go, doesn’t mean I can’t get the grades I want. I need to be my own PGP.  What I mean by that is, take the form we filled out in the beginning of the year of the grades we want and how we are going to get them for example.  I need to do that for my non PLP classes and I need to be the teacher in that situation making /sure I’m learning and achieving what my goal is. I need the PLP in me to stand out in all my classes. 

Grade 10 grew me for the better, and I’m going to miss having most of my classes in PLP.