Category Archives: Humanities

The land is part of our identity (Introduction post)

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Hello there, this is my first grade 9 post. Enjoy.

The first thing we did was to think the question below.

Driving Question: How does land impact our identity?

The diverse geography of the Lower mainland allows so many outdoor activities. This makes for a great number of Lower Mainland residents to be really active. It’s a different lifestyle where you can be outside all year contrary to Inner Canada or Alberta (were I used to live) where for a few months it’s to cold to be outside for too long.

The main project of this part of the unit was to make a video about how land impacts our identity.

We made a video about Deep Cove and identity. By the way, I star in it. In my group were Aedan and Kiera.

https://youtu.be/JbgEBd1amZQ

When you think of “identity” you usually don’t think about how the land around you will impact identity. In this project we realized how important the geography of where you live is in your life and identity.

BYE BYE Now.

TPOL: Next Stop Grade 9

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Worldview:

With the theme of learning in Grade 8 being Worldview, several of our projects have been about studying our own and other culture’s worldview. It has helped me realize that depending on the group your in, you have to adapt to the environment and try to use everybody’s strengths. Mostly at the end of the year I would try to apply this in group projects. One of the projects in my drama class, where we had to make an advertisement, I applied this knowledge if different people have different strengths. I was the only PLP kid in this group and had the best skills and resources to edit our video so I was mainly assigned to this job. One of my group mates who was quite confident, we tried to put in the most scenes of our video and have him record several lines. Another group member, who left us not even halfway through project but had several ideas when we were brainstorming lead us in that aspect of the project.

Storytelling:

To go along with our focus on still images, we focused a big part of our time on storytelling. Perhaps for me the main project reflecting this was our Middle Ages Unit where we had to create a story about a hero. I find that I don’t like writing stories down on a paper like a book. The use of still images so as to make a quilt or making a tableau, has helped me in interesting me in the projects.

Still Images:

Since our fist project of the year we’ve used still images, we created poster ads for local businesses. I learned how different colours make people feel different emotions and associate them with certain industries.

While working on our worldview/religion unit I learned how to put two or more images together for a different meaning. This process is called juxtaposition on which our class had a contest to make something up.

I learned how powerful still images can be for storytelling or advertising. I think I would be ready to take the next step in Grade 9 where we would focus on videos and moviemaking.

Presentations:

We’ve been working on our presentation skills throughout the year from D.I. and Our explorer presentation to Colonizing in a Tempest and the Exhibitions. I believe that most of my presentations have turned out successful although I had a few scrambles like my explorer presentation were I panicked. I have learned that I sometimes find it easier to wing a presentation but a few times like my explorer one a script or even a small notecard with bullet points makes a big difference.

Well that’s the end of it.

See you next post folks.

This Changes Everything: La Rennaissance

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This Changes Everything: La Rennaissance

The Rennaissance:

Hello again. This post is a bit late, so sorry about that but let’s get on with it. For this Unit we worked and learned about the Renaissance.

We pretty much studied three things that made the Renaissance really important in human history.

Changing ideas:

The first main part of the unit was focused on how the Renaissance changed ideas, ideals, and principles.

We studied how thinkers were starting to view how far humanity could go if it put its brainpower to it. They were becoming humanists. Humanists were spokesmen for humanism. Humanism is giving humanity top priority before gods or supernatural powers. It centred life around humanity. Ancient Greek philosophers had many of the same ideals. The Renaissane philosophers started studying and praising the Ancient Greek and taking many of their ideas. Many humanists or rebel priests started preaching that the Catholic church was wronging everybody. Back in the day pretty much the whole of Western Europe was Catholic. This where Protestant churches started emerging. The people were getting tired of the Catholic Church especially with more people preaching against them.

The artists were changing. The most famous paintings and statues came from the Renaissance. During this time it became a proffesion with a demand coming from rich families like the Medici or royal families. The elite were taking interest in art, it made them look more educated and rich. Some like the Medici started art schools. Many artist, like Leonardo da Vinci, were to only artist, they were also engineers architects, painters, sculptors, scientists and mathematicians. Some mixed all their talents into on job. Some Kings even would have the artist as their protégé. King Henry of France invited da Vinci to live with him for the rest of his life. Art was also changing. Art from the medieval times was pretty much mostly about religion. It was really two dimensional and didn’t ave much detail. The Renaissance changed that. Art was now about anything and not only the Church and the King. The details of paintings and sculptures was also changing. Paintings were more 3D and the detail was much improved.

Scientists and mathematicians the way we look at life, even if it went against the Church’s teachings. Galileo invented the telescope so we were suddenly able to look at lot further into the sky and we realized many things like some scientists/mathematicians/astronomers were starting to realize that the Sun was actually the centre of the Solar system and not the Earth. The Earth revolved around the sun not the other way around. Many astronomers like Copernicus who mentioned this turning point in astronomy were deeply criticized but the Church who had the people manipulated. Some astronomers were being apprehended and executed. These realization had people starting to doubt the Church.

Spreading ideas:

The printing press is definitely a candidate to most important inventions of humanity along with wheels, spears, cars, boats, and planes. It started spreading across Europe just like the knowledge it brought with it. Before the press people had to hand write books and the only people who were literate were super rich or they were monks. The printing press allowed books to be mass produced. With one press several books could be made every day but it took weeks or even months to hand write books. The value of books went down and now nearly everyone could buy books and not only the rich or just the Church. People everywhere were becoming literate. Knowledge was spreading and schools were becoming more available.

With people who could now read the Church was having a harder time convincing them of thing that weren’t true. With thinkers proving that many of the Church’s teachings were all made up. People could start counting their money and learn more about financial status. The Church that had been taking advantage of people’s illiteracy and some times pretty much stealing their money and possessions couldn’t do that easily any more.

Impact of ideas:

Many ideals and principles have been passed down from the Renaissance into our daily lives of the Western world. We focus more nowadays on ourselves and the people around us than a God or higher power. We believe that we can do many things and we have gone, quite far as to inventing car, planes, being able to explore space, building super tall skyscrapers and making computers. With new jobs emerging in the Renaissance, there are no thousands of jobs you can do. While before the Renaissance there was just a few options. Priest, servant or farmer, and if you got lucky you’d be born into a wealthy family.

Triptych:

Our main project for this unit was an individual one. We had to make a tritych.

Below is my first draft of my tritptych. The feedback that was given to me for this draft was that I had good ideas but it would be better if they could be more connected and intertwined.

 

Below is my final draft of my triptych.

The panel on the left (Changing ideas) represents doctors sytarted to dig into bodies and discovering things about bodies. I used a dead deer because a dead person didn’t seem right to put into my triptych, it could’ve been quite disturbing for some people. The middle panel (Impact of ideas) represents the initial Roman Catholic Church dividing into many different churches including all the Protestant churches that arose in the Renaissance. The right panel (Spreading ideas) is a woman reading a book with a stack of more books around her. The printing press behind her allowed to make books a lot cheaper and lot faster than handwriting all of them. The number of existing books skyrocketed in the Renaissance when the press was invented. The spread of knowledge led to a more educated public.

There were several interesting things this unit but it wasn’t my favourite for sure. While studying the impact of ideas part of the unit I really saw the connections between this time period and today’s Western culture. This period really has given many principles to today’s society.

Well that just about wraps it up folks. Until next one.

Discoveries, that had already been discovered

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Hello again. Lately we’ve been pounded with blog post assignments. This past unit in Humanities we’ve been learning about the Age of Exploration, so about all the European explorers coming to America.

The real discoverers?

Now when we think of the American explorers, we think of European explorers like Christopher Columbus or John Cabot. But the truth is that First Nations have been living in America (the continent) for tens of thousands of years in a very similar way throughout time.

We went through several guided notes including one about Beringia, a theory of how the First Nations got to America s at such an early time, before boats were invented. I personally think that First Nations were the first ones in America (continent) but since the European colonizers managed to kill most of the First Nations, they got to decide how they would want history written down.

The comic books:

Since part of our main project was to create a comic book, we had to study some comic books. We studied four types: Tintin, New Age, Superheroes, and Anti-hero. In the groups we had, we would read one type each week and at the end of the week we had a group discussion. At the same time we also filled out a comic comparison chart noting down things we saw under different columns.

My personal favourite was Tintin, it’s bright and vibrant colours are more appealing to me. Also it’s panels are more organized and similar. The other comics had lots of action but they were really dark in humour and in colour. 

Tintin has always been one of my favourite comics except for Astérix and Obélix.

The Big Project:

Our main project of the Unit was to make a comic book and a presentation about an explorer form the time and a fictional character we created that was supposed to accompany the famous explorer to his quest and come back.

My explorer:

My group got Spain for explorers we could pick. I decided on Hernán Cortés. We then had to do some research on our explorer.

He was one of the most famous conquistadors ever, he conquered Mexico. He did it in 2 years. From 1519-1521. He was able to wipe out the whole Aztec civilization in 2 years. When he first arrived with his men, the Aztecs wouldn’t let him into their capital. Eventually they mistook him for a returning god and started giving him luxurious gifts and letting him stay at the palace. He would also give their leader Moctezuma gifts but he got paranoid and captured Moctezuma and put him in house arrest.

He had other problems like they guy who initially asked him to go on the conquest, had decided for him not to go and he still did. This guy’s name was Velazquez, the Governor of New Spain. Velasquez was angry about the betrayal and decided to send troops to apprehend Cortes. Cortes was forced to go the coast to defend himself. He left his second-in-command in the Aztec capital with some troops. Many Aztecs had already died of diseases Cortes and his men had brought. But one day, an Aztec festival was taking place and the Spanish men ambushed the unarmed Aztecs and massacred them, few escaped and the ones that did had a high chance of dying of a disease. In the chaos Moctezuma was killed and the Empire fell into the hands of the Spanish.

The Comic:

I decided to name my fictional character Carlos Torres. He was Cortés’ servant in my story. The point of the comic was to pretend like we were that fictional character and on our return of the expedition make a comic book of what happened requested by the royal family.

My comic starts off with Cortés having nightmares of his expedition. My characcter comes in to Cortés’ room when he hears him screaming and then it goes into a flashback of what happened in Mexico. Then at the end, it goes back to Cortés’ room and my character tries to calm him down.

The Presentation:

After the comic book request of the royal family, my character is looking for financial backing for an expedition of his own. What better time to do it then when at the royal court in front of the King and Queen of Spain. The presentation had to include a few reasons on why the royal family should sponsor the trip, the success and fame it could bring to them, things my character would do differently than my explorer Cortés, where my character was planning to explore, and what finally what he needed for the expedition.

Below is a video of my presentation.

https://youtu.be/Fhb0kdPJD1A

If you saw the video, you can tell that I was extremely nervous (you’re probably laughing at me). I’m not too sure why because I’m usually good with that type of thing but I kind of broke down.

I learned about Mexico’s history and Hernán Cortés. Throughout the unit we learned about possible ways the First Nations got to North America and about different types of boats different places used. In the middle of the unit we learned about the Middle Passage otherwise known as the slave trade. After that we learned why European countries wanted to expand their territories and their needs.

Anyways that just about wraps it up. See you in the next post.

Stitch in Time: Feudalism and the Dark Ages

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Stitch in Time: Feudalism and the Dark Ages

Introduction:

Back at it with writing yet another Humanities post. I don’t remember saying this in other posts but I honestly hate writing blog posts but unfortunately (for me) it’s part of the program I’m in. Hopefully it helps me with something further on in my life because I could have been doing something fun instead of writing this. Any ways let’s get back to the main topic for this post: Feudalism and the Dark Ages.

Book of the Lion:

At the start of the unit we were given a book to read. It’s title is: Book of the Lion. The book is based off an adventure of a crusader and his journey to get to the Crusade. Every third of the book we had to complete our role sheet. There’s were three in total. An illustrator role where you would draw something you read in the book. Below is my illustration.

The second role was a connector role where you had to connect some part of the story to a real event, an experience that you’ve had and a movie, book or piece of literature or media. The third role was an investigator. You had to find a word or passage in the book that you were interested in deepening your knowledge in and research it, I researched war hammers. Like the one below.

It wasn’t my favourite book because the start and the end were a little boring but in the middle I was hooked.

Here’s a the cover.

Quilts:

Our main project for the unit was to make quilts with a story tied to them. It was a group project. In my group were Taylor, Anika, and Nik. We had to start off by brainstorming ideas for a story based in Medieval times with two sides to it by having to separate main characters that meet in the story at a certain point in time. Our story was about a Christian man who’s wife got kidnaped and taken to Jerusalem. She escapes her captors and ends up in a farm close to Jerusalem where a Muslim finds her and takes her in. Her husband meanwhile plans a trip to Jerusalem with some hired knights to rescue her. When he stumbles upon the house his wife has been staying at he starts fighting her rescuer thinking he’s her captor. After she tells him to stop and explains what’s happening they al become friends and the Christian man and his wife go back home.

After that we had make designs that would sort of tell the story on a square and piece them together into a quilt. Once they were sown together, we added somethings to spice them up and that was our finished project. Below are pictures of us with the quilt.

Heroes: 

To create the story we needed a hero and a villlain. Since we needed a hero we needed to learn about how to create a fictional hero and how stories revolve around the hero. We had to learn about the hero’s journey.

We learned that if you look at any story either from Disney movies or from teenage books, the hero’s journey is always there. The picture above shows the cycle a hero goes through.

They start off in a boring, familiar world. The next step, they discover a person or an object that tells them about an interesting world. At first they don’t want to go because they’re scared that something will happen. Eventually they give in and leave their boring world. On the way to the interesting world they meet a mentor who has gone through a similar journey and will help them along the way. The mentor, then, eventually has to set off and the protagonist is left to make their own friends but at the same time make new enemies. After meeting their allies and friends who will help the protagonist along the way, and their enemies that will try and stop the main character from achieving their goal, they will start approaching their main challenge, where everything starts getting harder and harder. They then finally meet their nemesis or their biggest fear, that they will have to overcome. After beating their biggest enemy, they get the reward. They then have to start going back to their normal world. They come back a different person, usually better and wiser. They then will start their journey all over again.

Percy Jackson was probably my favourite hero as a kid. (Above).

While we were learning about the hero’s journey we found out that the hero’s journey is the same in every story because it makes stories relatable to humans. We go through a hero’s journey every day, wether it be your afraid of heights or it’s a hockey game.

Myths:

During the unit we also learned about myths. Myths are a stories that are based off tradition and come from a truth/fact or they can be completely fictional. Many myths come from religions or are old myths when humans looked for explanations of natural events since they weren’t as technologically nor scientifically advanced as we are today. Below are some famous Ancient Greek myths explaining things or exaggerating a real event.

Well, you have reached the end of this post, so good luck with the ones coming up. See you soon on my next blog post.

A Week of Poetry

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A Week of Poetry

Poetry is not my favourite thing to do. It proved to be quite relaxing and comforting to write it. While our teachers were away we had a T.O.C. (Ms. Finlay) come in and help us out. She was great.

We learned about and how to write several different types of poems. The ones we did were:

  • Similes/Cliches/Rhyme Scheme
  • Haikus
  • Metaphors
  • Found Poems
  • Imagery Poems
  • Sound Poems
  • Personification Poems
  • Experience Poems
  • Self-portrait Poems

Every poem we wrote was to be linked to our worldview, since we had just worked on a unit about worldview.

We then had to start making our book which should also include an explanation of the poem. If you want to read my book click on the box below.

Most of my poems are about hockey since it’s my favourite sport and activity. I’ve then got a few that are about actual worldview and what it is. One of my poems is about languages, as I am trilingual (I speak English, French, and Spanish), and it is a big part of my world view.

So far the Poetry unit has been probably my favourite. It proved to be really relaxing and when I wrote the poems it was stress-free and once I got into it they were really easy.

Well that just about wraps it up. Until next post.

mPOL

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mPOL

Math

Math Project: My main project for Math so far was My Door is a Bore (Surface area an volume).

My evaluation of myself in math is that I seem to understand concepts relatively quickly and beIng good with operations. I forget some things but I seem to remember most times by skipping the question and coming back to it after. I’ve always found an interest in math so I will work better or put more effort into it.

During the project we worked in groups of 4. We divided our work quite well and put our skills in places we had more experience with than the others in our group. I was more of the person who was calculating numbers in my head and drawing and measuring our shapes.

What I should probably improve in this subject will be make a habit of studying before quizzes or tests because soon I’ll be encountering math that will not have such an easy solution as to skip the question and come back to it.

Science

Science Project: My main project for Science so far was Kinetic theory of matter (iMovie video what it is).

Below is the video I made with my partner Caleb. We had a problem were some pictures and audio recordings were deleted and so you’ll have sections with a black screen with audio or a picture/diagram without audio except for background music.

https://youtu.be/0-VQ88hRVMI

We’ve covered one area in science so far and our project was to make an iMovie about it. You cou draw a diagram or make a little video represention (little act, stop-motion, experiment, etc.) to make an educational video. Ideally you had to pretend whoever was watching it didn’t know anything about the subject so it had to be simple. I mostly enjoy science and that’s a plus for me because it assures I will put effort into it. Besides I’m currently thinking of being a doctor (surgeon) after university so science and chemistry helps.

Science, being so related to math has me constantly developing applying skills that are useful in both subjects like volume calculations and distances.

I could probably improve my researching skills as most of the things we’ve done so far need to find information for worksheets or assembling and organizing information properly.

Humanities

Humanities Projects: Main projects have been our Advertisements, our Worldview videos and our infographics.

I’ll start of saying that’s procrastination has been a big problem because, unless you’re really crazy (at least in my opinion), watching YouTube videos or following your favourite sports team is a lot more fun than homework and school, and doesn’t require work.

I got quite frustrated at times when making our ads because no matter how good or bad your first ad draft, you were going to have to make ten drafts. I actually liked the experience and marketing skills might prove quite useful in the future. The ones we made were poster ads so we had to engage people with images and limit your text because we humans tend to be kind of lazy and don’t want to read an ad full of text.

For the Worldview however we had to make a video that you have to make completely from scratch. Finding kind of a story of your personal worldview, is not to hard but trying to make it relatively short is. The app we used, I din’t like, because no matter the tutorials I watched and the tips from my friends I found the app confusing and hard to use. My other problem is that I have a really bad tendency to leave things for last minute which eventually will cost me dearly.

The infographics had the same steps as the advertisements. For me one of the main differences between the two projects was that the infographics were in a group of 4 and the advertisements were solitary. I had to step up alongside another person in my group because we had little time left to finish it and our group members weren’t helping much as they were away or sick.

                                                  Maker

Maker Project: My main project for Maker so far has been Blue Sky (Star Wars themed).

Probably my least favourite subject out of all four, I just don’t enjoy what we do. Maybe because at my age I don’t really understand how it could be helpful as an adult. I’ve been told that I may not understand now, but I might as well take the opportunity. My parents a have told me this several times, and as a result I kind of believe it, except I still just can’t put my full effort into it because I don’t enjoy it. I have learned that adults will tell you bad things that they have experienced so you don’t have to go through them but kids always get into new bad things, and that’s way every adult will teach a different thing.

The Star Wars exhbition, I find, just pushed me to learn more about Star Wars, but the truth is I never found something in it that I have a big interest on. The project being so big pushed me to make sure I can control my time well or you won’t be prepared, or won’t get much rest. It may seem harsh in short terms but will help in the long run.

 

Religion’s Impacts On Worldview

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Religion’s Impacts On Worldview

Back at it again with another blog post. We just finished a unit before the Christmas break called “Worldview and World religions”. Happy New Year’s to everyone, although it’s a little late already.

Anyways we’ve covering this subject for a while now and we had a few field trips and two projects during the span of it. We have studied several religions over the course of the unit. They are: Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism, Hinduism and Buddhism.

First Project

After having studied the concept of worldview for 1 week and a half we were tasked with using a new app to make a video about 3-5 minutes long. The app was called Explain Everything. In the app you can draw while your talking and it’ll show up on your screen during the video. You can also combine a bunch of other apps into it to make certain sounds or animations. The project was to pick three topics that are important to you and have changed your worldview. These three topics had bigger divisions that were part of the 7 things in worldview (below).

If you’re reading this, my video didn’t upload when I tried. I’ll try again later.

 

Field Trips

We went on 3 excursions during the unit. During the three we went to a Sikh Temple, a Buddhist Temple, a Hindu Temple, a mosque, a synagogue, and a church. At each place somebody was there to help us understand their worldview and how it has been affected by the religion they choose. They also explained to us what they did there, how they prayed and certainly things about the religion we didn’t have in our charts already.

First field trip:

Mosque pictures:

Synagogue pictures:

Second field trip:

We went to Richmond for a day where they have a street that has like 20 religious properties in a row.

Hindu Temple pictures:

Buddhist temple pictures:

Sikh Temple pictures (we had lunch there and it turns out they can only serve vegetarian foods really, but man was it great, with fresh made naan bread):

 

Third field trip:

We went to a church and met up with the father of the church. He explained to us many things and we asked a few questions about things we saw or experienced.

Second Project

Our second project was to make infographics in groups of 4 about a certain religion’s worldview. My group and I got Christianity. I referred to my chart a few times but sometimes it felt like religion is a really interesting and confusing topic.

We started off of with a wireframe (below).

After the wireframe we started off our infographic. Our first draft was horrendous and was just a picture of Jesus with a Fish and a loaf of bread beside him. THis represents that our group didn’t work well at the start. The other groups were way ahead by then. We still managed to hand it in on time.

Our second attempt was this. We’d used another app, added symbols and had decide on making almost like a circle or a square around Jesus.

We our third try was getting somewhere. We put the arrows in to make a cycle and so and order of who to read it.Was really crowded so we had to change it up. The colour coordination had improved. The main colours were white, golden yellow and and blue.

And finally this is what got approved. We changed the text colour so it would pop out a bit more. We spaced things out to make it more organized. We made the chart better with it being a perfect circle and not what we made before which a picture that had been edited 3 or 4 times. We added a box of text at the top so we could have 2 squares instead of one and an unfinished one. We decided on not blurring the clouds into the image but instead put a border around them.

These are some of the other groups’ infographics.

These two groups infographic had the most progress overall according to the teacher. I can see why. And they kept ahead the whole time.

Religions’ Chart

In order to remember better what we learned and have information right there, we had to make a chart with different religions and there similarities, differences, and traditions. For our second project we refferred to the chart often and we had some activities like worksheets that basically required the chart. We had to write things down in our own words so it got engraved in our heads and we could understand it better. While making it, I learned that Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all have the same roots so they actually have a great amount of things in common. For Buddhism and HInduism there is also a great similarity, they believe in reincarnation. You can read more by clicking the link below the pictures.

These are the symbols of the religions we studied.our group didn’t

Here’s a link to my chart.

World Religion Chart-1sqjcxh

Until next time.

Main subject for a week: Coastal Oregon in a packed bus.

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Main subject for a week: Coastal Oregon in a packed bus.

I’m back. My class has a different program to most people. We use iPads for most of our work and get field studies. What is that. It’s basically taking a small and packed bus with your class for a week somewhere. Instead of being in a normal class, that week we explore outside, go to museums and interact real life with what you’re learning. You’re putting things that you learned into real life.

We were asked to still work a lot, except it’s not as bad when you’re on a trip. One of the big things we had to do was make a book about the trip. It wasn’t even that hard but it was long. If you want to read it, just click on it right down here. It’ll describe the trip better than this.

Anyways, every year for the past 4 years or so they take the grade 8 class to the coast of Oregon. It’s one of those trips you’ll never forget and you get to know every one else a whole lot better. Especially after having to sleep in the same room with some of your pals.

Usually it rains a lot there. My friend Jason bought a shirt with the Grumpy Cat and it said “I went to Oregon once, it rained.” Luckily for us we didn’t get much rain.

The food there was great, but when you’re on a field trip it’s usually going to be good. We ate at DQ, Pig’N Pancake, Cabela’s, Nisa’s Thai and a lot of other places. We went to a chain buffet called the Golden Corral, man, was it good. It had cotton candy and a chocolate fountain. The breakfast kind of got repetitive and I’m used to something a bit different at home. We went zip lining, and on a boat tour.

While we were on the boat, our net pulled some eggs that even our science teacher who studied marine biology and the marine biologist guide had no idea what it was. The shells were like translucent rubber.

We also stopped at big department stores occasionally and we had, let’s say, little adventures. You could check things out and “test” couches.

The scenery was amazing. You’re just driving on the highway 100 meters above the water, and you can see the big waves that start from way out. Here are a few pictures.

That about wraps it up in the post. Like I mentioned before, the book has more pictures and certain descriptions about things we did. It also might have reflections.