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A day at the Office

My alarm goes off at 8:00am bright and early. It was a weekend why would my alarm be set? As I am a teenager who loves their sleep I was not too happy about the loud Shawn Mendes song blasting through my room startling me awake. The first thing I did was check my phone to see if there was anything on it explaining why my alarm could have possibly been set. My eyes flash towards a notification popping up at the top of my phone screen saying “Job Shadow”. Instantly my mind clued into why I was awoken. I jumped out of bed with high hopes that today would be good. And so my crazy day had begun. image

At 10:00 am sharp I had arrived outside of the big beautiful glass building in downtown Vancouver where I would be spending my day. It looked super intimidating and all of a sudden I felt out of place. Approaching the huge doors to the building hesitantly I saw my Aunt sitting there waiting for my arrival. She is the Director of Finance at the second biggest Law firm in the world, DLA Piper. She greeted me with a smile and told me I had nothing to worry about and how everyone in her section of the firm was very welcoming. We made our way up the elevator and then through some hallways making sure to say hello to everyone we passed. Finally, we had entered the world of Finance, or really it was just a bunch of small cubicles and computers.image

Nerves had filled my stomach seeing all the people and I was a bit anxious to be meeting them all. Luckily for me everyone was quite welcoming and greeted me with a handshake and introduction. I think I shook more hands that day then I have in my whole life. It was much less intimidating being inside of the building than the outside. I quickly felt a lot more comfortable being in the office after seeing and hearing about how everyone spent their days.

After the round of introductions we headed into my Aunt’s offIce which was quite nice. It made sense for her office to be all decorated since she loved interior design. I sat in a chair opposite her at her desk and looked out the window behind her. The view from her office was amazing, you could see all of downtown from here. I went on to ask her some interview questions about her job and education. Hearing her talk about how she managed to get into this position and why she wanted to be where she was was amazing to hear. I learnt that to be in the position of Director of Finance you would have had to work your way up to there after many years of working. She had been working with the company, DLA Piper, for almost 20 years already and she didn’t go to much schooling for it. image

Some other things I learned while spending time with many of her colleagues were that you don’t need a great education to work at this job, some people started working here as soon as they finished high school. Although for the higher positioned jobs like Lawyer you definitely would need at least 7 years of post secondary schooling.image

My aunt went to 4 years of post secondary school to get an undergraduate degree, but wishes that she had stayed in school longer because then there could have been more opportunities and possibilities for her. Her typical working hours as a Director of Finance is 9:00am to 6:00pm. Some skills needed to work this job are an understanding of math skills and people skills. As long as I have good marks in math and english I would be able to one day work at this job. Although she says it is better to take some classes that differ you from others as well because people are starting to want applicants who have some extra talent or skill. Lisa, my aunt, says that the best thing about working as a Director of Finance is that she can walk to work, the people in her building are friendly, and that it is always changing. Some occupations related to be a Director of Finance are an Accountant and Business owner.

imageAlso she told me some things about some of the other jobs in this building like media designers, IT crew, and even lawyers. All of these jobs and roles people worked at helped build up the company DLA Piper. Throughout the day she let me talk to some other people in the building so I could learn about some of the other jobs there are. The first person I talked to was a man named Kerry Sheppard. He was once a lawyer but now works as a Director of Student Programs. When we were talking I asked him some questions about what I would need to be a lawyer because that is what I hope to be one day. He told me about the post secondary classes I would need to take and what I would need to achieve in high school to move on to be a lawyer. Also, to hear him talk about the different types of lawyers was very interesting. Going into the day I had wanted to be a criminal lawyer, but coming out of the interview with Kerry he had managed to change my mind and I now am interesting in possibly family or financial law.

 

imageOnce we were finished talking, Kerry brought me to listen in on a meeting my Aunt was in with Andrea Lee, Manager of Financial Reporting, Carrie Anne Hinder, Supervisor of Financial Reporting, and Charlie Sham, Financial Projects Manager. It was interesting to see the way they took down information. For me being in the PLP program at school and doing most of my work on iPads, it was interesting to see them do everything with pen and paper. Even the computers in their offices were an old version and very rarely used. When I was sitting in the meeting listening in I found it hard to understand what they were talking about because of all the business and financial lingo they used. It made me feel like they were speaking a different language, although it was a good experience to listen and experience something of this format.

After attending the meeting my Uncle came to the office and took my Aunt and I out for our lunch break. Even the place we went to eat downtown was professional. It was pretty busy there and full of people in nice suits and dresses. I guessed this was a pretty popular place for business people to come for their lunch breaks. image

Next on the agenda I went and talked to a very kind and humble women named Megan McAllister. Her position at DLA Piper is the Director of Human Resources. She talked about how she had always enjoyed talking to people and helping them with their problems as well as the legal aspect in life. This job was perfect for her and she talked about how she had worked through many different jobs prior to this that she really didn’t enjoy that much. It made me realize that there really is a job out there for everyone.

Next I went and talked to a very professional looking women named Julie Stratton. Her job was the Manager of Marketing and Business Development. Everyone at this firm had very professional sounding titles.

After talking to Julie for a little bit she took me to talk to someone who’s job she believed would be more interesting to someone my age. I met with Nancy To who was the Digital Design Coordinator. Her job was to create the companies social media, websites, and power point presentations as well as design for any logos and merchandise for the company. It was interesting to hear about how she spent her days working because I myself love to be creative and design things. Talking to her really opened up my eyes to different jobs that I could have never even thought of that incorporate both my love for law and design. image

Finally, the last person I talked to was a very respected lady named Susan Kihara. Her job was the Director of Facilities and Services. She talked to me about how she had been working with DLA Piper since she was 16. That means she started working here when she was still in high school. Hearing her stories about how she worked her way from the paper room girl to her respected title now was amazing. Surprisingly, it was her last week on the job before she retried. It is crazy to think she has worked with the same company all her life and has loved almost every minute of it.

Overall, the day was an inspiring and engaging experience. I met many hardworking, dedicated professionals that shared valuable information that will help guide me in my future career choices. This really opened up my mind to see how many possible options I have for a career and that I shouldn’t have to worry about finding a job that suits my interests because there is a job out there for almost everything.

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Walking Alone

Throughout the past few weeks we have been diving into the topic of segregation in the Deep South. For me personally I didn’t know much about how black Americans earned the right to vote and equality in the south. After just getting through half of this unit I have already been enlightened about the many hardships and tragedies these people had to face. To hear stories about lynching, church burnings, and marches made my heart heavy. With the knowledge I have today I know none of these things should have even happened in the first place. But I do always wonder what started all of this evil and hatred towards black Americans?

The Little Rock Nine were a powerful and insanely driven group of students. These nine high school students were picked to attend a once all white school, since the new law of school of school segregation had been put in place. All nine students had mixed feelings about this. Sure they were excited and hopeful that maybe they were getting somewhere to end the segregation, but there was still that pit in their stomachs from the nerves for their first day of school. However the fellow white students were not as happy about them coming to their school as the nine were. So they made a plan that going alone in the morning just wasn’t a safe option. image

Elizabeth Eckford, who was one of the nine, did not own a phone so unfortunately for her she didn’t know that all the kids were supposed to meet somewhere so they could walk into school together. As she was walking alone other students stared to gather around her and heckle her. Slowly a whole mob had formed around poor Elizabeth who was just trying to go to school. image

How do you explain the mob’s reaction to Elizabeth’s arrival at school? What do you think white protestors were trying to accomplish?
Below are two poems I have written. The first explaining what I believe the mob’s reaction to Elizabeth’s arrival at school could have been from one person in the crowd’s perspective. The next how I perceive Elizabeth to be feeling in this moment with the mob surrounding and yelling at her.

Mob Mentality:

All my life it had only ever been whites
Until those blacks decided to come
I’ve grown up knowing to leave them in fright
Now they prance our halls making us look dumb

A girl walks alone in a sea of us
Anger runs through my veins seeing her here
The crowd starts screaming and making a fuss
All I want is for her to disappear

You could tell she was scared by the way she shook
This made me pleased as I heckled her more
In her hands she was gripping a book
Oh how I wanted to smash it to the floor

School was a place where whites could be free
Till those blacks had to fight for equality
All I Want is Education:

My first day at a new school was bad
I didn’t even make it in the door
The protesters around me seemed quite mad
Even the police helped with the uproar

My knees shook, but I kept my head held high
For I could not let their words get to me
They surrounded me wanting me to die
My only option left was to flee

Words of hate flew by me left and right
I thought the new law said I could go to school
Yet these people wanted to put up a fight
All of their yelling made me feel like a fool

A fair education was all I asked
But these people could not leave their past

I believe the white protesters were trying to show the government as well as the African Americans that they are not needed here in schools. They think that things were just fine the way they were before. With blacks in their designated schools and whites in theirs. Also I think the white protesters were trying to scare off the students in hopes that they wouldn’t come back to the school or the neighbourhood again. But luckily their protesting against African Americans attending so called white schools did nothing. The Little Rock nine kept persevering and coming to school to prove them wrong. In the end it payed off well and the white protests were pointless.

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Destination Growth Mindset

Growth Mindset was introduced to us at the beginning of the year. At first I’m pretty sure everybody thought it was some kind of joke. Now looking back on it I realize how important it is to think and act with a growth mindset. I have had a pretty fixed mindset in a lot of scenarios in my life and it would have benefited my greatly to have opened up my mind and thought with a growth mindset.

image Recently we got the amazing opportunity to participate in Destination Imagination. It was an extremely rewarding process and challenge. My group and I definitely were not to keen about working and presenting our challenge. I had it fixed in my head from all of the negative thoughts around me that this would not enjoyable. Going into this project with a mindset like that really brought my group and I down.

To start off we had some serious procrastination issues. For example we waited until the night before to fully create our structure and were even fixing and adjusting it on the day of the challenge. Also none of us really had any hope in our group because we were comparing ourselves to others. That is something that I should never do again. We had it fixed in our minds that we would not do well in this project.

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When the day of the challenge got closer to I started to realize how much I wanted to do well in this and how much time we had wasted. I turned my whole perspective on this project around and pushed myself and my group to work our hardest on the last few days of work. If I had gone into the project with the attitude I had during the last few days then I believe we could have done a lot better then we did.

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In the end we came out getting third place in our challenge, but we did a lot better then I ever expected we would going into that project. Luckily we get the opportunity to try again at a higher levelled competition and I know that for next time I will strive to push myself and my group to do the best we can and to always find a positive outcome in it all.

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Death by Presentaion

Presenting is something that I have always dreaded doing. Every single time the words presentation or speaking come out of a teachers mouth I get all anxious and nervous. Although every time I know that once I am up there and I am in the flow of things everything will be fine. I still struggle with some aspects of presenting.

When looking back onto last year and the speaking presentations I did I feel I have really grown and developed my presenting skills. I feel that some key aspects as to why I feel more comfortable presenting today is because of PLP class. We have all been together for a year and a half now and I know the majority of the class very well. Everybody is comfortable in front of each other and I feel a lot more confident heading into presentations knowing that I will have the support of my classmates and friends.

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In my opinion poetry was a really entertaining and engaging thing to learn about. We got the opportunity to work in groups of our choice and focus on one category of poems. Our group chose death, which was surprisingly my suggestion. We then went on to find, analyze, and memorize poems for a final presentation. Going into this presentation I was extremely nervous that I would mess up the flow of the poem or forget a line and stumble along. Although just like every time I get up to the front of the class room to present I am completely fine. I really need to get it in my head before a presentation that I will be fine instead of after.

While presenting I believe I have improved on making eye contact and using an appropriate tone when speaking about my work. For example when I was reading out my poem I made sure to look all around the room and make eye contact with everyone. Also I used an appropriate tone when reading the poem, it was understandable, yet powerful considering my topic was death. Presenting I believe will always be something I am scared about, but I know that one day I will be truly proud of what I have said in front of my audience.

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Tuesday Night Blog Post

Whenever I have something I need to say I always go to writing to use as a tool to speak my mind. Writing has been a passion of mine since I was in elementary school. I remember we would be assigned short stories, (my favourite was one about the moon) images-7to do and most people would be done in a matter of one or two work periods, but I would take my time and write down as much as possible. Although most of the time my grammar wasn’t very good, but hey, I was only 10! I even kept all my writing from elementary school so I could see how far I have come.

Throughout the beginning of the year we have been working on probably one of the most awful things any high school student dreads to do. That’s right, essays. Okay some essays are definitely better then others. For example I actually love writing narrative essays, but synthesis essays, that’s a whole other story.

When writing I tend to let my mind wander into the most bizarre places and sometimes the stories I write are quite weird. Essays have helped me to keep my writing structured and making sense.

The narrative essay was one of the last essays we wrote in class and it is definitely my best work yet. I spent a lot of time and effort on that one essay and it really payed off. It is the piece of work that I am definitely most proud of so far this year.

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When writing this essay I went through a lot of revision. For example I probably rewrote the intro 10 times before I got one that I was pleased with. Also I was really proud how I ended my essay off in a similar way how I started it to tie it all together because normally my endings to writing pieces are never my strong point. Although I am working my hardest to try and improve every detail about my writing techniques.

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“Do or do not there is no try”

I had never watched any of the Star Wars movies until we started creating this project. Shocking I know. I always imagined they were just some silly movie series and I never really understood what all the hype was about them. I just want to say that I am now a Star Wars nerd. I even got a Star Wars mug for Christmas! image
I am in love with the movies and working on this project really helped me in finding a better understanding of them.

Yoda is the arguably the wisest character in the whole Star Wars franchise. I instantly was in awe when I first saw Yoda in the prequels so I decided to make him the focus of my project.

When I first created the idea of recreating Yoda as a mask form I thought it would be fairly easy. Little did I know that replicating something as intricate as Yoda is very challenging. Forming the base shape for his head was simple, but recreating the details of his face onto the head was a challenge for me. I was very discouraged when I first started making him because honestly, he looked quite ugly. image

Then once I started painting him and added a few more features on he looked a bit possessed. I walked into my kitchen one morning where my Yoda head was sitting and I completely forgot he was there. Let’s just say I was wide awake after seeing Yoda. I thought some little alien was in my kitchen and it scared me way more then it should have.  image

In my opinion painting the head was definitely the easiest part of it all. The final product I think came out much better then I expected.

 

My Process:
1. Started with a ballon and attached two pieces of paper to the sides to represent the ears

2. Layered the ballon twice with paper mache and let dry for a day

3. Glued on the nose, mouth, and forehead that we’re all made out of clay

4. Painted everything different shades of green

5. Created the eyes using clay, glued them on, and painted the outside of them

6. Attached clay around the outside of his ears to add depth to them and painted them again

7. Went back and added some more clay and drew lines on it to add a wrinkle effect then painted them

8. Painted the design of Yoda’s eyes

9. Added hair around his ears and the top of his head

10. Finally I placed him on a little stand where I made a coat out of cloth

 

When it comes to creating driving questions I always have a struggle. It doesn’t help that this is my least favourite part of the project. But it is necessary to have a good project. My driving question is, what is necessary for a mask maker to be successful in the movie making industry? After doing lots of research and creating a keynote which I presented at the exhibition night, I learned exactly a mask maker, makeup designer can be successful in the movie making industry. You can see my keynote here.

Ours exhibition night was a huge success I believe for everyone. Each section of the library, our classroom, and the hallway were decorated as a different planet form Star Wars. My personal favourite was Hoth because when you walked in you felt like you were walking into the Arctic. It was even cold in there.

My planet I presented in was Dagobah, which is quite fitting for my project considering that is where Yoda’s home is. Talking about my mask to others was actually quite easy. It think that the blue sky project exhibition night last year really prepared me and made me more comfortable with these kind of presenting situations. There were some very good questions asked and I tried my best to answer them. Most of them were about how I made him though, which those were quite easy to answer. Overall I’d say that visitors and presenters really enjoyed the exhibition night.

Throughout the creation of this project I learned that creating a mask is way more difficult then it seems. The process one has to go through in order to create a new character is unbelievably challenging. I expected that recreating a mask would be easier then creating my own, but after making Yoda I learned that you need to be extra careful with the details. image

Overall doing this project really helped me to further develop my art and creative skills. Also it showed me a bunch of really great movies that I am now a little obsessed with. Surprisingly I actually didn’t procrastinate this project this time!

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The Challenge of Synthesis Essays

Essays are a main focus for us in class right now since we are taking an English exam this year which includes essays in it. I enjoy writing a lot, but when it comes to writing an essay, I would really rather not do it.

In the past I have written several different types of essays, expository, persuasive, and now synthesis. This one was definitely the most challenging. I have always found it difficult to connect two things, especially books that honestly, I wasn’t that interested in. Although that wasn’t even the challenging part. Finding quotes that fit in nicely with my topics was extremely difficult for me. If I had the choice I wouldn’t ever write a synthesis essay again. Unfortunately that’s not an option for me. Also creating the outline for the essay was something that I struggled with. Mostly because I have a hard time creating new ideas.

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There was really no specific part of the essay I found to be noticeably easy. Although coming up with descriptive things to say once I have my outline done is simple to me.

I definitely want to be able to improve on finding quotes that flow well with the essay, as well as the proper way to use quotes. I kept having to look back on the hand out we received on how to use quotes.

I am proud that I completed the essay properly and on time. Usually with writing I am too hard on myself and always think that I need to go back and fix something else, which is a huge factor into why I don’t hand things like these in on time usually.

Overall I learned a lot about how to integrate quotes into my essay without having them just kind of stand out and look funny. Also I learned a lot about the Chinese immigrations to Canada from the two books I read to write this essay. Challenging things will block my path, but I learned that if I overcome them and complete them p, I end up feeling a lot better about myself.

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Overall This Year

Overall this year I believe I have definitely improved a lot in many areas. For example I feel more confident with public speaking, my writing, movie making, and work habits. My blue sky project was a very big and important individual project that I recently completed. I have compared it to the frankenstuffie project we did at the beginning of the year. I have I ,proved a lot when it comes to creating an iMovie. For example the frankenstuffie video wasn’t the best and I was still I learning how to use iMovie.

Now that I know more about iMovie I found it easier to create videos such as my blue sky project short video I created.

Also I feel like I am a little better at coming up with ideas for projects. At the beginning of the year I had a lot of difficulties producing creative and innovative ideas, where as now I find it much easier. Also I believe they are a lot better now then they were at the beginning of the year.

Some aspects of my work have gotten better and better as the year progressed. I am becoming proud of more and more of my work now. A project that we recently completed was the metaphor machine project where we creating a working machine full of metaphors, a iMovie showing our progress and working machine, and a blueprint. This was a group project and I feel that I worked well in this group. Building has always been a weakness of mine. I am not the best when it comes to hands on work, so to be able to create a functioning machine with the help of my group members I felt very accomplished and proud of this project. Also I believe they the iMovie I created with a few of the other group members is definitely one of the best movies I have created this year so far.

As you probably all know by now, public speaking has always been a weak point of mine. I get nervous and shaky and tend to not be the best I can be. But when I presented my ethical debate I felt confident and prepared. I am definitely most proud of the debate we showed to the class. It was a real turning point in public speaking for me.