This Week I Learned (Week 3)


QUARANTINING

This week for my This Week I Learned post I thought I would cover the topic of quarantining. Something that ties in quite well with our lives today. By quarantining I mean “to impose isolation on a person, animal, or place.” This is very clearly exemplified by the US and the security council of the UN, in our 1950’s research. The USA hated communists. Communists opposed the ideals that the US government strongly in, one of the main ideals is that communists believe more in the “whole” instead of the “individual.”

People are also ranked on what they can contribute to the whole as well. The US government at this point put all its belief on the individual, each person had their own rights and were free to do as they pleased, as well as treated and dealt with as a singular person. So the US really felt negatively towards any communist based country, because of this opposition of belief, this leads to the quarantining that I was talking about.

The USA began to eliminate communist based rulers with the Truman Doctrine. The Truman Doctrine was a doctrine that stated that the United States would provide financial aid and military support to any country struggling against a communist power. This was the USA’s way of quarantining the communist powers, they would completely isolate any countries that believed in communism by bringing other counties up who believed in the same power. 

Macbeth quarantines something in his story as well by removing anyone who questioned how he came to power, and his immense amount of “luck”. He quarantined this rivalling belief. He did this by killing anyone who could question him.

The first example of this is when Macbeth killed the guards, these guards could give insight into the murderer, but Macbeth silenced them before the truth could be heard. Another example of quarantining is when Macbeth ordered murderers to kill Banquo. Banquo was killed because he began to question Macbeth’s story. (Another reason Banquo was killed was because the witches had told him that his sons would become kings, which means that Macbeth’s line will end with him. But for the reasons of this post I will stick with the previous explanation.) Macbeth was scared of someone outing his treasonous crimes, so he quarantined the truth. Much like the United States quarantining communism, Macbeth began to eliminate this rivalling power. 

EXTENSION

To expand my knowledge this week I decided to bring this connection to today, and have a huge connection through quarantining.

In very recent news the outbreak of the coronavirus has taken the world by shock. With over 810 deaths reported by Sunday February 9th, surpassing the death toll of the SARS outbreak of 2003. This epidemic ties more into the literal term of quarantining. In China they have create many quarantines to keep the sick away from affecting others.

Many quarantine quarters are set up in Wuhan, they have separate areas for the diagnosed with severe symptoms, and for the diagnosed with minimal symptoms. Many community centers have been turned into quarantine areas, as well as the Chinese government created 2 hospitals to hold an estimated 2,600 more people showing symptoms.

This form of quarantining is like Macbeths quarantining, or the US government’s. It show slight difference because it is such a literal form, but in every other way it is similar. The Chinese government has confined the virus by confining the carrier. Much alike Macbeth confining the truth, or the US government trying to confine communism.

To further my learning for this post I decided to interview my father about Coronavirus to see his perspective! Here’s the link to the podcast!

https://soundcloud.com/user-335030245/coronavirus-slightly-explained

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This Week I Learned (Week 2)

MACBETH

AND BABY BOOMERS

1950’s and Today

I have been taking notes in class to understand post war America, and what really when down in the 50’s. This week while Ms Willemse was giving us the rundown of boomers, something really stood out to me. The fact that for the first time ever people began to market things to the kids, because of the booming economy, and booming generation, company’s were able to make things look really attractive to the kids, instead of their parents.

Most company’s focused all their marketing attention towards baby boomers because they enlarged the economy, and had the most to spend. Many company’s still provide specific marketing towards boomers, even though they are 55-75 years old now. Companies do this because boomers even though old, still support most of the economy. On average many boomers buy plenty of things that are not of importance, and purchase many things for grandkids, and family members. They also purchase things that bring them positions of power if they can, super cars, big houses, spa retreats, fancy clothing, and lots of jewelry. Many of these purchases would be brought to a minimum if marketers slowed the output of boomer oriented products, this is where I can tie it into Macbeth. I was very interested in the way that Macbeth is manipulated in Act 1 Scene 7, and used that information for my TWIL last week, and for this week I would like to use the same information, but shape it towards a different concept. 

Macbeth

When Lady Macbeth manipulates Macbeth, she’s really just changing her marketing solution. She making the murder look more appetizing to Macbeth, so that he thinks he has no other option, which really is what good marketing’s all about.

You have to sell your product so that people believe that nothing else will do the same job, or do a better job. Lady Macbeth does an excellent job at marketing to Macbeth, which makes the audience believe that this wasn’t her first rodeo, but it doesn’t end here. 

In Act 3 scene 1, Macbeth uses this power to his benefit. He has hired 2 murderers to kill Banquo and his son, but he doesn’t want the blood traced souly back to him with no reason, so he convinces the murderers that Banquo is this terrible person that deserves to die, and by the end of his marketing, he has them sold.

In this scene Macbeth uses Lady Macbeths tactic of selling to the audience to achieve a reason for killing Banquo. 

I decided to express this connection between marketing to baby boomers and the killing of Duncan and Banquo through the creation of an add!

This is an example of an add that originates from the 1950’s era. I decided to use this add as the template for my add!

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MPOL

I am now officially old enough to to drive, to go on trips with my friends alone and to be in the second to last year of high school.

It’s a big year, and that is reflected in the work I produce. I have to say that I am particularly proud of what lays behind me this year, traveling to Albuquerque, New Mexico and really educating myself about the atomic bomb and its role in the war, to writing poetry, I think that my whole class has a lot to be proud of, so I would like to travel back in time, and show you what I have produced this year. 

This year all begins in the middle of August 2019.

Basking in the sun with my friends, the conceptual question of wether I had, or had not read the book for english pops up, what a stresser. I ended up not reading the book until school had started, though when school did start, we began discussing our very first project, and this book, which connected to

The manhattan project 

This project entailed research into the history of WW2 as well as research into the science behind the bomb itself. I really enjoyed the mix of the 2 subjects, and had a good time furthering my understanding outside of class. The trip that we went on made everything much more understandable, (aside from the time at which we had to wake up for to see the rise of the hot air balloons, though that was an incredible experience, and I will never forget it.)

While learning about the atomic bomb, we made our atomic books. I made sure to take a lot of footage for this project and enjoyed documenting every little thing, I took a lot of voice recordings and though I was quite persistent, I really only used very few! But the second I got a good clip, I knew exactly where it would go, and how it would fit into the video. I also prized myself on the writing that I added into the book. I did a lot of research, and though I was told at the beginning to cut the writing down, I did, but I also found that writing is one of my gifts, and that I should pursue my stronger talent before I further the lesser talents. So my book ended up being very book based, which makes sense. This made me more proud of the final product. 

Lord Of The Flies 

The second piece of literature we dug our noses into was Lord Of The Flies, we read and watched the movie for this project. The reading of the book went down quite well, I stuck to the due dates and perceived the story as I was reading. I feel that this is a good example of how self regulating I am. I know that it would have simple to read the spark notes, and pretend like I read the book, but no. I realized that the more I put off actually doing the work, the more the work builds up in the future,and the more screwed you get. I believe that I have been this way for a while and this has never really been a problem for me but I wanted to point out this quality because reading the book didn’t increase my grade, it didn’t automatically make me a better student, but it sort of ties into the PGP book,

just becuase you dont see evidence of change immediately, doesn’t mean you have to stop trying, it means you just beginning. So instead of looking for the evident reason that benefits me, I decided to self regulate, and make sure that I made time for it, instead of just leaving it. In the end it benefited me greatly, because just reading the book makes you have a stronger connection to the story, and then writing tests is simple because you have a grander understanding. 

DOWNFALL

Something that I didn’t do so well would have to be the Lord Of The Flies presentation. My group still did well, but our personalities did not mix well, and the characteristics began to clash. We ended up stepping on each others toes which just pissed everyone off, so our presentation wasn’t everything that I wanted it to be. What I took from this experience was that sometimes its hard to motivate unmotivated people, and that you cant treat everyone the same. Certain people need certain cues to actually do the work and if you use the same ones for everyone they loose their ability to achieve the outcome you want. So during this project I used cues that I would have followed, and Luca followed as well, but our other group members needed a different cue, and I didnt think about including that. So I have learned from this mistake and it will be especially important during our next project to remember. 

Poetry

Out of all the things I created this year, I would have to say that I was the most proud of my poetry. I had a random woman come up to me the day after I presented my work, almost in tears, she said that my work really resonated with her and had so many positive things to say about it. This means the most to me. When my work is able to leave me, and effect others it is incredible. I created a book of my poetry and each one took a little piece of me with it, which I think is a really unique project. While learning about poetry I felt that I really resonated with the information and found a little fire within that extremely enjoyed writing poetry. Here is the link to my post about that project.

And here is my book of poetry!

Atomic Habits 

I spoke briefly about the atomic habits book before, but I would like to mention this as well. Atomic Habits is jam packed full of powerful information, and I withdrew all of it. (Here are my habits I set in stone!)

I took notes on the book and read a chapter every morning for a week to get through it before school started up again, but I couldn’t fully apply it to my life. I found it hard to initialize these habits into my life. I decided this year my main goal was to focus my energy on areas that really need my help, and all the habit methods and the cue, craving, response, reward, have directed my focus more clearly but I think that I need a bit more of a cue, to initially start this regime. I used this process to incorporate more activity into my week and to plan with my family. But I find I am really happy with how I live my life right now. I dont have one major issue that sticks out to myself, and because of this I find it hard to apply pressure on myself to create this new habit that I am not interested in creating. I think I need to be struck with a bit of creativity and time, and I’ll think of one, but for now I’ve began working out more, and caring for my body, with help from atomic habits, and I’ll leave it at that. 

My goal this year is to apply the proper amount of energy into projects, instead of applying to much, or not enough (cantina), and be able to enjoy life and live a balanced lifestyle, where stress is a far away thought. 

So my questions for you as an audience is how do you decide what projects to spend the most time on, and on these projects what does full effort, half effort and little effort look like? 

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This Week I Learned (Week 1)

Macbeth and the Berlin Wall

PLP 11 took their first lecture this week, with head held high as information was dumped upon them, and their fingers scrambled to clean it up.  Learning about the war is a challenge especially since so much information about dates and events are being thrown up in the air, it is literally a scramble to catch it all. Though this post is made to connect things I learned about WW2 and Macbeth, which I have yet to mention. We are also learning about Macbeth in this unit. Hot off finishing act one, I am ready to make some connections when one hits me right between the eyes. In Macbeth, (spoiler alert) king Duncan is the subject to killing. Thane of glamis and cawdor, Macbeth is told he is going to be king by 3 witches. Macbeth believes these witches with prompting from his very masculine wife, lady Macbeth, and they begin to plot. King Duncan is only killed for his title. For the fact that if dead the title would go to Macbeth, I assume. This made a connection to the Berlin Wall, a funny and questionable relation, I agree but hear me out. 

Berlin Wall

When the allies became the “victors” of WW2, they obtained Germany and “nurtured” it back into the economic state it needed to be in, Instead of just turning their back on it.

Though they second the allies were conquering land the Russians came soaring into Germany on a direct course to Berlin. They wanted Berlin for the title, and the power obtained with it. The allies close behind, but just not fast enough then lost all hope at obtaining the full power of Berlin forever. They split the title and power, and became power hungry, and enemies. 

Macbeth

This connection ties the fact that lady Macbeth talks Macbeth into murdering king Duncan for the title, as the allies and Russia are talked into splitting the power, just for the title.

This feeling of nothing being better then you are, or no one being higher then you are, lead both of these situations right into the dirt. Because the allies couldn’t let go of Berlin and the fact that the Russians would have soul occupation of it, partially lead to the Cold War, and becuase Macbeth is told that the only way to be manly, or the only way to be strong is to kill the king, he is walking right into his own death – because that’s what they think the better person would do. 

Today

It’s funny when you think about the role that society, and it’s norms play on our decions and you can see in this example clear as day that these situations would not have happened would either of them thought it manly or strong to back down. You can see this throughout time.

When your masculinity becomes something of question its a fight to get it back. Take for instance my brother, my dad and I biking up Mt. Seymour. I harassed them to continue biking, but they only listened because they didn’t want to be the lesser biker. They didn’t want anyone being better then them! Of course no hard feelings, and I barely even noticed it, but its just something to think about!

I choose to express my further knowledge in this topic in the form of a timeline of masculinity! Enjoy!

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ATOMIC HABITS

Habits often don’t show improvement or success for a while, but the moment they do, they show it in a very exaggerated way. This is one thing that really stuck with me after reading atomic habits, because a lot of the time when we dont see improvement immediately, humans as a species, will give up. Its really hard for us to continue to work for something when we can’t see the benefits of why were doing it. James Clear refers to the gym reference quite a bit throughout his book, becuase it fits in perfectly. How often have you wanted to workout, headed to the gym once, and not seen any improvement, then agreed that the gym wasn’t for you. That’s the perfect example of this mindset that if you dont look like a CrossFit champ after one deadlift, then your incapable of ever looking that way, this giving up mindset. I found this whole point extremely interesting and think about this quite a bit. This irrational fear of failure makes it impossible to be good at everything, and be successful, but I have to say that this book has taught me how to move around this fear, and in this blog post I will explain the most important pieces of this book.

The First Law: Make It Obvious 

Cue

Have you ever walked into a dark room and wondered how to make it light? Probably not, because we have been exposed to electric lighting our whole lives, and a light switch lingers in the darkness somewhere, in every room. James Clear used this example to expose how habits become natural when we make them obvious. This Cue, or The First Law: Make It Obvious, sets up the rest of the habit ladder. Once it is obvious, you begin to crave the outcome, which is the second law, Craving. The third law encapsulates responding to this craving, Response. And lastly after one has responded to the craving, you are left with the 4th and final law, Make It Satisfying, or Reward. After I turn the lights on, I can see. I am left satisfied, and I will continue to do that in the future because I know that I prefer the light better then the dark. So that is how 1 scenario can show all the laws of a habit, and yet you do it so unthinkingly. 

Now to create habits its much harder to make the cue a bait you would want to attack. Because you implementing this whole new system into your life. Say if you want to drink a glass of water every morning, implementing this habit is quite the hassle, but James Clear has thought about this. 

IMPLEMENTATION INTENTION 

An implementation intention is very effective in creating habits that are easier to reach. It helps to jumpstart your new habit and get it one its way to becoming an action that requires no thinking. This is an implementation intention.

I will (BEHAVIOUR) at (TIME) in (LOCATION).

Seems simple doesn’t it. Bring this back to the working out example above, this makes it impossible to go just once, because its a recurring thing. Ex, I will WORKOUT at 5:30 ON MONDAY’S in PARK GATE GYM. 

This makes it very simple to keep up with my habit. I don’t have to be constantly thinking about when I will workout next, becuase I know on Monday’s I will head to the gym. 

Say I’ve become the average gym woman now, and I religiously attend the gym, never skip a rep, and am starting to see results, and I stick with it, but I begin to realize that showering the morning after the gym isn’t really working for me, my hair is all wet at work and I never get the proper sleep needed after attending the gym, so I decide to shower after the gym. This is called HABIT STACKING.  

After (CURRENT HABIT) I will (NEW HABIT).

So for my showering conundrum I can implement habit stacking and create a stack that looks like this. Ex, After I WORKOUT I will SHOWER. So simple but it saves you so much. All of these tips and tricks are only going to make the cue harder to resist, but what do you do after you’ve caught the bait?

Here is my habit stacker and implementation intention!

The Second Law: Make It Attractive

Craving 

After you workout, or run, or dance the night away, you always feel like a super charged human being. Instead of feeling gross, and wiped, you feel like you could build a new planet in mars. You feel better then before you went out and did that form of exercise. But what is it that makes it that way? Dopamine. Surprisingly not a drug, but a natural (if your not prompting it by an outside drug) hormone release, that makes you feel great. Have you ever laughed so hard you’ve cried? Dopamine release. Sang your favourite song at full volume with your buddies? Dopamine release. Though I’ve painted this dopamine release as something that can only happen when your locked up with your friend listening to your favourite song and laughing, it actually happens many more times then you think. According to James Clear, every time we consider the craving for a habit, we experience a dopamine spike. Which is funny to think about, since you’d think that the reward would produce our spike, but bring this information back to the turning on the light habit. Have you ever felt charged after turning on the light? Not counting of you got electrocuted by them. Not really, but you were charged to turn on the lights, weren’t you? So you released your dopamine then, thinking about the lights on, not when they actually were on. So when you begin a new habit the craving has to be strong to be able to complete the rest of it, because once you envision the turnout your hooked.  

Another thing to consider when thinking about beefing up your craving is temptation bundling. Which is just bundling something you need to do with something you want to do. 

Ie: After (HABIT NEEDED) I will (HABIT WANTED). 

I do this one quite a bit without realizing. For example writing this blog post is a habit that I needed to do, but I really wanted to go up the mountain today, so I told myself that after I completed this blog post I could go up the mountain. This turns the second habit, or the habit that is wanted into a form of a reward. So when I complete this blog post, catch me on the mountain, because I told myself I would be able to go when I finished the work. This habit is very effective if you have a lot going on, or a lot of work piling up. If you can make the work the guideway to something enjoyable, the work itself almost becomes enjoyable. You have to have a bit of self control to be able to accomplish this task though, because as easy as James Clear makes it sound, you have to be able to put something that is unenjoyable in front of something that is enjoyable, even though your the only person that is doing it. You have to hold yourself to it. But once you’ve got that under control then you can continue using the habit needed as a gateway to the habit wanted. 

Another way to bundle habits is by bundling temptation bundling and, intention bundling, together. I call it the ultimate bundle, but it actually isn’t that crazy. 

Ie: After (CURRENT HABIT) I will (HABIT NEEDED). After (HABIT I NEED) I will (HABIT I WANT).

This just makes functionality so much easier. You don’t feel the need to become distracted either, because you would be distracting yourself from the habit that you want to do. 

Another way to make the craving easier to let into, is by surrounding yourself with people that project the qualities you want. We often rise or fall to the people in our surroundings. So if you fill your life with people that have habits that you want, you’ll have an easier time finding those same habits in yourself. 

Now we have this craving, but we need to make it into a habit.

The Third Law: Make It Easy

Response

Humans are super lazy, its one of our major downfalls as a species. Take this climate emergency we have entered. We could find solutions to this problem, if we were willing to trash everything we’ve established so far, but here we remain in this climate emergency, because of our incapability of being solution based as a species. Now this applies to everything, including our habits. If our habit is established in an environment where its not supported it wont be very easy to sustain, and so will most likely collapse before breaking through the plateau of latent potential.

If you make your environment reflect your habit on the other hand, you will be much more likely to break through the plateau. Ex, returning to our example above about working out. If you wanted to workout in your room every morning, laying out your mat and some water with your clothes that are required for the habit would make the habit easier to complete. 

Another way to make new habits stick better is to stick to the new habit rule. The 2 minute rule. This rule, according to James Clear, states that when you begin a new habit it must take only 2 minutes. I have a hard time with this one. If your only supposed to spend 2 minutes on it then it should be a smaller habit, but for larger habits that take a bit more time to cary out, I would stick to 1 hour, or 30 minute increments. I understand that 2 minutes would work for meditation, yoga, reading, writing, etc. But say you want to snowboard or wakeboard.I would feel turned off but spending so much time getting ready, and only spending 10mins on the mountain. So remember that some of these laws may not work for you, but all you have to do is tweak them a bit!

The 3rd law is Making Your Habit Easy, but this works the opposite for habits you want to get rid of. If you prime the environment against the habit that you don’t want, you’ll have an easier way of quitting that habit. Say you want to quit using screens around bed time. If you move your charger away from your bed you have to make the choice between your screen or a charged phone for the next day, which primes your environment against the bad habit. 

To continue on a habit you must have a reward, so that brings us to our 4th and final law. 

The Fourth Law: Make It Satisfying

Reward

As I was mentioning above about the temptation bundling, we were more likely to finish work when a habit we wanted to do followed the work. This is that same with this 4th law. To complete a habit you need to have something waiting at the end, and it has to be something good. When your completing habits and you are sticking to a schedule, always stick with it, and never miss twice. According to James Clear, missing twice s distils a feeling of carelessness about the habit, and makes it feel very unimportant, and easy to skip again. So sticking to a schedule makes it simple to be rewarded on a continual basis. Sometimes we have a hard time sticking to our word or our schedule, and informing someone of our endeavours into a new habit can always help. Last year I created a magazine about goals, one of the questions I asked every person was “Do you think that if you told people your goals it would be easier to stick to them?” And every single person said yes it would, but they still wouldn’t, because their to scared to fail in someone else’s eyes, and every single person I spoke to said the same thing. This same goal transfers to habits. Telling your new habit someone you trust and will be able to hold you to it is ideal. This way you don’t feel as if its only you doing this all by yourself, so less self control is needed. 

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The Beat Goes On… In A Galaxy Far Far Away

(Wow, I apologize Ms. Maxwell. I only see the word play in that sentence now, after the tidal wave has passed, definitely my bad.) 

 

To revisit the title, THE BEAT GOES ON, we carried it. It being the beat. We also created it, if we are keeping score, as well as writing it and giving it an environment. We nurtured our premature knowledge of beat poetry, growth and development came almost immediately. We were fuel’d to answer our driving question which was “How can we use poetry to reflect our perspectives on people, places, issues and beliefs?” This question led us to our first step of the project. Our research started where every good PLP project starts. A chart, more explicitly, a table, expressing what WE KNOW, what we NEED TO KNOW, and QUESTIONS that we have.  This table definitely helps us to understand what our project is going to consist of, and where we should be directing our creativity. During this table, we came across many questions, because the introduction of this project was also the introduction of this concept, which pardon me for not mentioning earlier, is BEAT POETRY.

The art of informal and free poetry. The term beat poetry was coined by the beat poets of the Beat Generation. They had been beat down by the government and society and decided to express their feelings through prose, and more non conventional modes of poetry. They had many coded poems that we began to uncypher piece by piece, adding in our own interpretations to create a personal connection to the themes as well as the underlying meaning.

One of the poems that we looked over was “A Supermarket In California,” by Allen Ginsberg, one of the founding members of the beat poetry movement. This poem opened my eyes. It did not carry a rigid line structure, nor did it follow a repetition of vowels. It was a poem because he said it was a poem. All of a sudden I was hooked, not only hooked, I was mind blown. It was not childish as the poems I remembered reading on the shag carpet, during reading, before writing and after nap time. It was exquisite. No precise meaning, every single person interpreted it differently. His skill was putting pictures, moments and feelings into words. The poem could have been written in 10 mins or worked to perfection. He was not constrained by conformity, he had shown what he could do, and he had done it quite well. I began writing immediately, knowing now that the poems I wrote did not have to regurgitate the 7,5,7 line format that I had ever so pleasantly drilled into my head, nor the same sounding ending that never seemed to come freely to me. I was finally able to accept poetry, and let myself create pieces that meant more to me then anything that I had ever written before. It was a strange concept, claiming that this compilation of words was a prose poem. 

Here is the solid part of the final project, the collection of my poems.

I spoke briefly above about Allen Ginsberg, one of the founders of beat poetry, but I would like to introduce you reader to another face that gets tied to the generation, Gregory Corso. For class we had to choose a poet and research them and their connection to the Beat Generation, and Corso was my poet.

This was another way my mind expanded during this project. This man is a living legend. Gregory Corso is a surviver, but context is lost because I have yet to tell you his struggles. If you would like to further your education on Corso I made a podcast about his life story, its only 5 mins long, and sums up all of the important events in his life. It was hard to fit them all in 5 mins. Gregory Corso opened my mind to more unique forms of poetry as well, so I found the research that I had to do, quite fun and entertaining and if you decide to listen to the podcast I’d hope you find the same excitement.

https://soundcloud.com/user-335030245/the-story-of-gregory-corso

Now what Corso discussed in his poems was extremely effected by his upbringing. His poetry tended to carry many more topics that I could barely even mention in my poems. I find that this is because I do not share certain life experiences that are required to express certain emotions. I lack the need to keep yourself alive, fending for your self, and never knowing where your going to lay your head the next night. Emotions that derive from the city being your home and not being raised in a generic family setting. I don’t know how that would have worked for Corso ( had that ever been an option) but certain things effect certain people, and so my poems do not focus on these things that I dont have connections to, instead they focus on these things that corso missed. Its not that one is better then the other, (Corso is far better,) but in discussing topics if you as a poet can turn yarn into gold, you’ve accomplished great things, just as Corso did.

To wrap up our unit we (my class) were a participant in the PLP Star Wars exhibition in late December. We preformed Beat Poetry in front of family’s and friends, in a student created cantina, made to resemble the cantina in Star Wars. We had our band students playing a set in the intermission, as well as drinks na food being served. The lighting was low, and our own Emily Jansen had created a script to express the fact that every new-commer to the “cantina” was sent from the empire, and being form the empire no one really liked you, so you had to stay quiet, which was a creative and exciting way to keep people quiet.

Here’s the video of me performing!

Reflection

This project gave me a glimpse at a new form of expression that I really hope to continue into my life. I think that poetry is a very special expressive form and that I was very lucky to be introduced to it at such a young age. I found the presentation nerve raking, and scary because I was presenting very personal poems to an audience. So I believe that I have grown quite a bit throughout this project.

I also had a woman come up to me who told me my poem had really resonated with her, she was almost in tears during our conversation. Why would I give up on something that resonates with so many people? 

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Cracking the lord of the flies code

Pleasantly surprised would be a good way to describe this book. I am used to reading books for school that I am not so fond of, or books that I wouldn’t pick if I had the choice. But lord of the flies is different. I feel as if I would read this book in my free time had someone come along and told me about all the underground meaning, all the ties to society, and the story that was told but yet untold. I feel like I over analyze everything now because of this book. I’ll see a movie and wonder if the way that the character said that line refers to the oppression of their innocence, or I’ll just be reading and each line could mean something completely different then what’s on the page. Anyways let me tell you about the project that just came and went focussing on lord of the flies.

Our driving question for this unit was “What is the role of tribalism in society?” We were looking into tribes all around us. Tribes like family, and friends, sports teams and sports fans. Almost everything can be classified as a tribe. Which we learned throughout this project. We made connections to everyday things as well as to the very well known tribes, such as cults, or gangs, in our final project. Throughout this blog post I will go through the steps of the project piece by piece!

Journal entries 

To show our understanding in this project we started by writing. We wrote journal entries. These journal entries had topics like:

  • What makes a great leader? What present day examples can you include? How do you see Lord of the Flies as an example (or not)?
  • Are all children violent? Adults? What causes or doesn’t cause it? How do you see Lord of the Flies as an example (or not)?
  • How is power and control a part of tribes? How does Lord of the Flies show this

As you can tell these journal entries do not all focus directly on lord of the flies, its mostly just how does lord of the flies show this, or can you see lord of the flies as an example, and that because this projects other focus was on tribalism. Not aboriginal tribalism per say, but all tribalism. We wanted to find the connection between a tribe of our choice and lord of the flies through tribalism. My group, (Luca J, Giorgia, and Lucas) decided to do Hells Angels as the tribe of our choice. We were late to deciding and that got us a little bit discombobulated, but we found our way back to being on top of work. After we completed the research, we divided up the tasks so that each member had something to do for our final presentation. In our final presentation we had to use keynote and make a presentation about the tribe of our choice and its connection to lord of the flies. 

Here is my groups video of us presenting!

Presentation Reflection

I felt the presentation went well, and that we completed all the necessary requirements for our presentation. We all worked pretty isolated, and if we had, had an extra day maybe we would have been more comfortable on stage with our work. Though I know I get pretty bad stage fright when I go up, I think that if we had run through it I wouldn’t have had it as bad. Also working with 3 other people is hard, and since we were the largest group the bar was set higher because of it.

Throughout this project we covered quite a few core competencies. Here they are:

  • Reading and Personal Text Response
  • The Writing Process
  • Literary Identification and Analysis 
  • Understanding Language Construction and Intent

I will explain how each of these was used!

For the reading and personal text response this covers all the writing and reading we did. So the reading of lord of the flies counts as part of this, which I did, and I even have proof because I got the book out from the library, just so my eyes wouldn’t hurt at night! Also each of our journal responses fall under this competency. Well not the whole journal response but the thought and plan of the journal response stems from this competency. 

The next competency is The Writing Process. This describes the actual creation of work. Either our journal response, or script creation. It’s the transformation of your personal text response into an actual readable document.

The literary identification and analysis I mainly used while writing my journal responses. I used this when I wanted to prove a point by including a quote or a certain fact that supports my work. It just makes it all the more informational, and people reading it feel like its more educational because of it. 

The last competency we used was understanding language construction and intent. We used this competency while we were reading lord of the flies. We had to adjust our mindset to adapt to the language being used in a book written in the 1950’s. Also we had to figure out meaning beyond the just what the text was telling us, which falls under this competency as well. 

Thanks for reading!

Adlih

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NEW MEXICO

Q: What state is one of the most southernly states and sits right beside Arizona?

A: New Mexico!

https://youtu.be/txf6NTQ-mu0

I got asked at least 7 times, when I returned home, if I had traveled to Mexico. Every time I had to remind the person that New Mexico was not in Mexico, or that New Mexico is not Mexico’s other name. So having been there and realizing that New Mexico is its own state, is a sign I am already learning things!

Upon our return from New Mexico we were assigned the PGP project of reflecting deeply on out experience on our trip, talking about how we flexibly created, imagined, and innovated while taking responsible risks. 

Every trip is overflowing with responsible risks, (some more responsible then others) and for you as a reader to understand them, I would like to give a example of a responsible risk. 

On day four we found ourselves gazing down at the location the first ever atomic bomb had been detonated. The trinity site (the place of first detonation) played a major role in history, and so played a major role in our books. This meant that we were collecting every bit of content we could, such as: stand ups, video, sounds, photos, facts, and interviews. It the last one that I’m going to focus on for this example. I saw a few of my class mates asking people at the test site why they were at the test site today, and why the trinity site was so significant to them personally. I felt the need to ask someone as well. I found a older gentlemen who had a hat that read “veteran” in large, bright font.

The man was around my height, and he seemed to be all by himself. George Wolf, the owner of this bold hat that I had been drawn towards, told me all about why he was at the trinity site that day. That interview, even though it was only 45 seconds, ended up becoming a staple of my project.

It helped me to see how much other people were affected by this, and another person’s perspective on such a controversial topic. I would like to think of this as one of the more recognized responsible risks that I took this trip, but durning this post I will delve into a few that are smaller, but packed with as much meaning.

 

While we were visiting the trinity test site, on our fourth day in New Mexico, we were taken on a bus to the house where the worlds first Atomic bomb was assembled. The house was only around 2 kilometres from the test site. No one was in this house when the bomb detonated because when that first bomb went off a whole section of the house collapsed and all the windows blew in.

During the whole time at the trinity site I had noticed the military presence everywhere we looked. Personally I am always drawn to the military. I always feel as if I have hundreds of questions to ask and never enough time to find answers for them all. Take for example Encounters Canada.

In encounters we spent a afternoon speaking to veterans and seeking out information about the present military. I found these moments shared with the veteran were some of the most informational throughout that whole week. I found a side of myself that will constantly be interested by people who put their lives on the line to protect us. So when we visited the bomb house, the military there made me extremely interested. Though I talk about speaking to veterans and military in the past, its still nerve racking going up to someone you don’t know. Especially someone that you don’t necessarily want information from but more of a conversation with. The woman I went up to to speak with had a name tag that read GARCIA. She wasn’t speaking to any of the tourists at the site and seemed to be gazing off, wishing to get out of the hot sun. She would turn to speak to her partner ANGEL, every now and then, but mostly just stuck to her self. After around 5 mins of my self awkwardly watching her, trying to obtain confidence to talk to them, I walked up to her. I introduced myself, and we had a super interesting and deep conversation. She told me all bout how her husband was also in the military and that he was stationed in Korea. How she hadn’t seen him in months, and how she might be heading to Hawaii after her time in New Mexico. This information was so increasingly helpful during this project. It played a major role in my project because I was able to connect the military presence with my one on one conversation. I was also able to grow my understanding just a little bit on the military which is something I am always looking to do!

The last way I took a creative risk, that I’m going to talk about plays into my fun on the trip, and it has to do with Meow Wolf. Meow Wolf, what a place. I can not give you a proper description of Meow Wolf because I don’t think such a thing exists.

(Hopefully this video gives you context on the extremes that Meow Wolf produces!)

It was the strangest experience, crazy colours, interesting room design, weird art, etc. One of the things that really stood out to me were these tiny spaces that lead into larger spaces. Extremely vague, let me just fill you in. One of these “spaces” was through a washing machine, one was through a fridge, one was through a hole in the wall, and one was up a teeny tiny staircase. This last “space” was the one I wanted to focus on for my responsible risk. Let me describe the staircase to you. This staircase  lead from a floor in what looked to be a Sahara style, candy store to a goth and deathly styled area. There were other ways to reach the goth, deathy styled room, but I wanted to take this tiny staircase, and so towards it I walked. Only until i was standing in it did I realize how claustrophobic I am. I used to be a lot more claustrophobic, but I am much more adventurous now and I like to push the boundary of my claustrophobia to see if one day I can eventually overcome it. This was one of those moments.

I decided to take a responsible risk and explore this tiny staircase, even though I felt like playing it safe was a better idea. I climbed the staircase and realized how good I felt. I had taken a risk and it had payed off, I was not hyperventilating in the corner, and I wasn’t stuck in the staircase so I took that as a good sign. 

To wrap this up, taking responsible risks is different for everyone. A responsible risk does not mean pushing yourself to do something your not comfortable with doing, it just means expanding what your comfortable with! Another thing to keep in mind is that if your taking a responsible risk that means that you want to better your self somehow, (because if your just taking plain risks, then I don’t think I would be writing a blog post about them!) so always keep that in mind!

During this trip we were creating books about the Manhattan project and if you would like to take a look at my finished project it is right here!

Thanks for reading 

Adlih

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Job shadow

During this term we were assigned with the task of completing a job shadow with someone who obtains a position in a work environment that we would like to see ourselves in one day. This was a very challenging task for some, to send out all the emails, and though I thought myself different from the class and that I may fly through the job shadow unscathed, but much to my dismay I realized that I was too much alike the rest of my class, though my problem was not sending the emails, but receiving them! I sent 6 emails to countless sustainability company’s across the lower mainland, and I never received a email in response. Now I was a little shut down and I wanted to give up and come into the next school year without a job shadow to show (mind you my teachers had then given me and other students who had not completed the project all of summer to complete it) around then I realized I had the perfect connection just waiting for me under my nose. 

My cousin, Sage, is majoring in political science and is a very environmentally charged human being. She is always talking about what we need to do to help save our environment, and how we should do it. Sage has a job with the city of Penticton to help with recycling, and the connection that has with environmentalism. I was able to job shadow her during one of her shifts this summer when my family was staying in Naramata. I learned a lot about the connection proper recycling has to conserving life on this planet. I also learned that when you don’t put your recycling into the proper area or leave the products messy or dirty, the recycling company will not sort it for you and so the whole load will go to the landfill. Sage taught me a lot about the environment and how much we impact it. 

I thought I would describe an average day of work for Sage with the city of Penticton. After arriving in the morning sage settles in by preforming a few audits and checking cart inventory. Later in the day Sage let her creative side show by writing educational articles or creating educational videos. This is one of the videos that sage helped to create!

As well as doing all this, Sage will also make the rounds talking to local people about their recycling and helping to inform them about the affects of wrongly preforming recycling. At the end of the day I asked sage a few questions about her job. Here are my questions and answers!

A : What classes did you take to help you get to the position you are now?

S : Environmental studies, because I care about the environment and recycling has a lot to do with that.

A : What’s the best part of your job?

S : Educating the community on ways to improve their recycling which allows them to protect the environment.

A : What’s the worst part about your job?

S : Probably dumpster diving. That’s it!

A : What’s the typical work hours and schedule of your job?

S : Tuesday to Saturday, 7 am to 3:15 pm. 

A : Why did you chose your job?

S : Because I believed that it would give me good experience towards my aspirations in a political setting, whether that be in a provincial, municipal or federal environment. 

A : Thank you so much Sage!

S : Of course!

I learned quite a bit about recycling through this job shadow and this learning will further may efforts to create a lesser footprint

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Final exhibition

Recently PLP took part in the spring exhibition. This was actually my first spring exhibition I had ever been to. Last year I created a product for the exhibition, but I was so sick that I couldn’t make it to the actual event. I didn’t realize this until after the exhibition, but I think I like the spring exhibition better then the winter one, it may just be the fact that summer begins right when that night ends! I worked really hard on this years exhibition, we focused on our circle BC trip, and the three main topics, which were industries in BC, First Nation relations, and the gold rush. For my topic I chose to focus on industry in BC. I was so interested in the port of Prince Rupert, and the environmentalism that they talk about in their mission statement and there future plans. But really what drew me to the port was what wasn’t talked about. I wanted to know what they meant when they talked about being the most sustainable port in the world, or how they were actually showing that. And so my exhibition question was formed. Now came the heavy lifting.  

I have recently become very interested in journalism, and so I decided that for this project I would like to make a 3 page newspaper, that can hold a iPad within it. My idea varied a bit from this one at the start but this is what I ended with. I began with the idea of sustainability, and how industries like the cannery are being run dry, and losing income from our poor ecosystems, and I could show this by doing a newspaper which symbolizes the change in direction from classic “paper” to a more reliable source such as an iPad or an Ereader.

As my actual project idea changed my physical object idea mostly stayed the same so I was able to get a bit of a head start on creating my newspaper, and unlike many other people my project relied solely on research or actual information. So the next step was to do buckets and buckets of research and complete a few interviews.

We talked about this step in the launch journal in school, and I believe that this is the step that has stuck with me the most. For completing a project you had to have finished your primary and secondary research. Primary research is basically just using google and asking around with your peers, or creating pole. Secondary research is sourcing someone who would be understanding in the field that your looking into, and then asking them. This is really important because my project wouldn’t have been even remotely the same with out the secondary research I found.

I did a interview with someone at the port of Prince Rupert, and I also did a interview with someone at plastic bank. Now both of these interviews made my project quite a bit more interesting, so I personally think that research is a very big part of ones project, even if it’s not research based. 

The next step I took was creating the actual end product, this took quite a bit because I had to get the layout just right. People don’t really realize just how much work goes into the little things, and since I got quite a few compliments talking about how mine looked a lot like a north shore news paper, I think I did pretty good! The layout took quite a bit of time but once I had it down it was smooth sailing from there. 

On the night of the exhibition I really didn’t know what to expect. I had worked really hard on my project, but I didn’t know what people would think of it, and how they would react to the information. The first wave of people came by and Isabelle’s parents were the first people to come to my station, which made it a lot easier to tell people about my project for the first time. It was a huge hit, and I got a sense of confidence, I also found key points I wanted to cover and things I didn’t need to talk about. I also found myself a sort of script that I really enjoyed saying and made it easier for me to get my point across. I didn’t even escape my station till the end of the night when we all started to pack up because when people came to my station they stayed for quite a little bit, so I couldn’t find time throughout the night to see others, but from what I saw in my room alone, everyone’s was incredible, so I think PLP did really well this year. 

All in all I learned a bunch about environmentalism in platt industries and what that means, and I also had a good time. 

Thanks for reading and happy summer

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