Monthly Archives: January 2022

My Masterful mPOl

Hello! This blog post is the summary and story of my latest blog post for PLP, my mPOL. This isn’t a project but an end-of-semester presentation I have to do. The driving questions for this presentation are “how have I demonstrated growth as a learner so far this year and how can I sharpen my Learning Plan to ensure I will reach my learning targets by the end of this school year?” 

Accomplishments I am proud of

In this part of the post I will be showing what I am proud of that I did this year. I am not really one to jump up and and be proud of what I do. I can be a little cynical at times, and I’m always able to see where I could do better. Always trying to achieve perfection. Because of this I had to actually think about it and get some help from my dad.

Drawing:

I actually decided that I wanted to get better at drawing in my Learning Plan and I think I really have. I actually did a project on drawing here [https://www.blog44.ca/judahg/2021/12/14/carr-the-joy-of-the-pencil]. I worked on this further during the winter holidays by reading some books about drawing figures. Some key drawings that I’m proud of that I did this past couple months are Attack Penguin, the Green Dice, My Hallway and my Peanuts character of myself that I use as my profile pic everywhere.

Screens:

Now I bet everyone during Covid is been on screens more and I’m not exception. But I have been working on being on screens less. Some examples of this are taking up sketching on paper again, not going on my computer, and just reading a lot. A challenge with this however are getting a brand new iPad for school and doing all my work on it. But I have time limits and I have not been getting carried away with it.

Attending school:

I know this is like oh of course you’re going to school. You shouldn’t feel proud of that, it’s just what you have to do. But hey its more complicated then that. I have had a flipped lid for the past couple of months, I have lost a dear friend, I am having high anxiety and I’m finding school really challenging on top of that. The fact that I go without complaining and get myself ready always is something I’m proud of no matter what they say.

Where I’ve grown

Before starting this I didn’t think I had grown much, but after I looked back at it I realized I really have. For all of these things I obviously have room to grow but really have gotten better.

Perfection:

I really have started to let go for perfection more and just say “thats good enough.” I still have to actively think about it but thats still a start. Where I have done this is with drawing and all my school work in general. 

Handling anxiety:

Now I still have anxiety. And a let of it. It is still a real, real challenge. However I have started to learn some ways to calm it down. For instance telling it the truth about right now. Showing the anxiety that I am safe in this moment. 

Group work:

Now same with anxiety, and all the things on this list but I really have grown, with working with people. Sometimes letting an idea happen even I don’t agree, like it, or think I have a better one. It can be really hard doing it.

Where to grow

Most of the things here are from where I’ve grown because I really want to get better at those things. There is also some new ones.

Handling anxiety:

This will be quick because I have already touched on it. I specifically want to learn how to deal with it in the moment. This is something that I can talk to with my mom and counsellor.

Help:

I really need to learn to ask for help. It’s not just that I don’t want to, I convince myself that I can do it myself. I also forget a lot of the time to ask. I also have a hard time accepting help. I can’t even give myself any help.

Group work:

I still struggle so much with group work. I have grown in it but I believe I can always do better. Part of this is communicating. I have always had a hard time communicating even with people I know well.

PLP Class Review

Here I will be talking a bit about each PLP class I did this semester. Humanities, Maker, and Scimatics. 

Humanities:

In Humanities I feel I did fine. I pass safely, but don’t completely excel. I have actually not tried to spend all my time doing work and getting 100%. This is different from how school has been for me so far in my life since I used to get all A’s. I got those not just because I’m bright but the material felt very easy. It was more challenging. I actually find this with all my other classes as well. My favourite project we did in Humanities was poetry. It brings together feelings and writing. Both things I am not too bad at (its also quiet dramatic:). All together I do like Humanities.

Maker:

So for I am liking Maker. The only thing I haven’t loved about it is doing DI, but thats not really Maker, just what we did in the Maker time. I feel like Maker is a mix of everything you do at school. Thinking, building, writing, etc. I favourite project that we did for Maker so far is probably Constructing Creative Communication. Specifically the Carr class where I got better a drawing, though the picture taking was interesting as well.

Scimatics:

Scimatics is the class that seems most like real school. We learn about math and science two really fascinating things that have gotten even more interesting now that I’m in high school. We learned and created laser displays! We would never do that in elementary! I really like scimatics. There is also less group work. My favourite project in scimatics that I have done so far is for sure the Laser Laws. We learned about a mathematical law for goodness sake! A formula! a²+b²=c². It’s amazing. And then we tried to prove it in real life! 

See ya around and goodbye, Judah G!

DIpresation

DIpresation

Hello! This blog post is the summary and story (so far) of my latest school project, Destination imagination (DI). Specifically Tricky Tales. In this project there is not a driving question since this is not a PLP project. It is kind of like PLP on steroids. Basically we get a project and we need to create an 8 minute skit to fill the criteria. It is world wide as well. No pressure. It’s run by… itself. It’s that big. N o P r E s S u R e. Also we can’t get ANY sort of help from others that aren’t in our group. Thats not too bad but that does mean we might have to learn soldering. My group for this project is Julia, Jupiter, Kai, Luca, Makai, and Tom. Note: this is not supposed to be educational. Also I doubt this will be well put together since there are a LOT of big and hard emotions involved (also trying to make it shorter which I am doing SO well with so far (/s)). Also maybe not the best grammar. Sorry. Now lets jump into the lava lake.

Ok. I learn of DI around October I think? Well I get the general feel for what DI is. We tell them what subproject we want. I chose the Fine Arts one because I like Fine Arts. It’s cool and creative. Only latter do learn that that is the hardest one of them all. YEAH. Already stressed about it at this point, but we aren’t doing it yet. We get to wait a month before then so I try to put it out of my head. Then DI does roll around and I, from the beginning, am not trying to win it. Oh did I not mention that? It’s a C o M p E t I t I o N. No biggy. Class ends and we are assigned to read through the 14 page project and to take highlight stuff. We were also given this FIFTY TWO page document of rules. If you think thats not too bad this is a part from it about foot coverings, not shoes, foot coverings: Foot Coverings: All team members must wear shoes or foot coverings with reasonably impenetrable soles at all times during a tournament. This is to protect team members from any undetected debris that may be on the floor. A team member who loses a foot covering during the Presentation may continue their portion of the Presentation only after the foot covering is replaced. Appraisers may assist the team member in retrieving the foot covering but not in replacing it on the foot. The remaining team members may continue to present.

It wasn’t the next year that I learned that I was supposed to read of all it. I forget what we did next probably some icebreakers? What exactly is the project you ask? Well I’ll tell you just be patient. … … … haha. Ok seriously basically what my team has to do is make an 8 minute skit about a trickster in a tricky situation.  A story! Not too hard If you know how. Also we have to have a costume transformation with Technical Methods. Ooh, fancy. Basically through math and science. We need an illusion. Defined as something designed to wrongfully perceived. Fancy words, am I right? Two Choice Elements is also something we need to do. Choose two things to add that shows our teams interests, skills, talents, and areas of strength. Harder then we thought so far. We also need a story with a trickster and a tricky situation. 

What I do remember is that I brainstorming for the project. We got this doc with these squares and we wrote ideas for the project in them. Since there was six of us so far (we didn’t get Makai until later. Yeah we get more people. Even EASIER) there we a lot of squares. We spent about an hour I think sorting them. We also continued practicing instant challenges. Instant challenges are ANOTHER thing we have to do the day of. Basically we are given some materials and some instructions. We have to complete the challenge in often around two minutes then perform it for some other short amount of time. Next class we sifted through the idea boxes down into some we like… that we aren’t using I believe. Honesty our fault there but you can’t win the all. Next we start making a “Decision Matrix.” Our teachers described this as… I forget. I’ll describe it. You got chart. Put decisions that need to me made on. Choose what type of decision making you want it to be (which is a decision (inception on multiple levels:)). Then a secondary decision making way. They also showed us some damn convoluted ways to make decisions because voting and consensus are too hard. Think they mixed that one up but what ever. As you can probably guess we didn’t use. Then we really start brainstorming which was crap. I can say this because I am in this group; we didn’t get many good ideas. We got some good stuff but we should have got more. I also was sick for a while and they DIDN’T TELL me what they did! The fear of the unknown yo fancy meeting you here. Also we are teenagers so we are not the best at being on task I have really learned. Probably doesn’t help that they are listening to music, playing on their iPads and have iPads in the first place! At this point I’m crying after school every day and boy is my mental health is taking a beating. Keep in mind this isn’t the only thing that I have going on. YEAH! Also the teachers only NOW realize that we have basically no idea what we were doing and we had to do a sort restart. So I think I got us back on track (kinda) so we got an actual story that isn’t a pile of words so thats good. Then this semester is ending and we don’t have any more class time. We have to do it outside of schools. I learned that people do a lot of more things than me. And humans are fricking frustrating. Take me for example. Also teachers are shooting down everyone’s ideas. I know its not me but it still hurts ok! I’m semi-ranting in a blog post. Bet my teachers will love this. And I’m also critiquing them. Might be getting some bad grades after this lol. I also lost a best friend a few months ago. And my counsellor might have covid and is sick. Now you’re up to date. Bye.

See ya around and goodbye, Judah G!

 

ps shoutout to Caden for coming up with this awesome title.

Fancy Word Playing

Hello! This blog post is the summary and story of my latest Humanities project, Working With Words. In this project we created poetry and just learned about poems in general. The driving question for this project is “How might I construct text that shows who I am right now?” For this project we didn’t actually have groups but instead each class we were given a new random group. One thing (whenever I put brackets after a poem name in this post, its not the actual definition but what the teachers wanted us to do. This could include the definition though so you need to be on your toes).

The first thing we did was look at the adult world connection and why are we learning this. We can skip over that. (its a little boring) But after we were given our groups for the class we started the first activity. We were given a cut up poem and we were to recreate it in any order. The cut up poem we were we were given was My (or the father. I forgot) Father by Fred Wah. It goes like this:

My Father hurt-

Ing at the table

Sitting hurting

At suppertime

Deep inside very

Far down inside

Because I can’t stand the ginger 

In the beef and greens 

He cooked for us tonight 

And years latter tonight

That look on his face

Appears now on mine

My children 

My food

Their food

My father

Their father

Me mine

The father 

Very far

Very very far

Inside

It’s about something along the lines of the father is hurting because the kids are ungrateful and then the kid become father. My groups poem had the same meaning expect with the bit about the kid becoming the father. Then we learned of the final thing we were going to make for this project; an ebook with all the poems we will write. What? We will be writing poetry. Yes we will be. And then we will put it in the ebook with meaning statements and complementary texts. Meaning statements describe what the poem is about and the  complementary texts are either audio, photo, drawing, or text that complements the poem. You want to see my ebook? You’ll have to wait until the end of the post:). We then learned how to read poetry all fancy like. Now that we were “real poets” with our white hair, quills, and tea we can start writing poems. We were assigned two poems to write. A simile one (10 lines, describe your worldview with similes

) and an extended metaphor (6-8 sentences, compare a part of your worldview to something else) poem.

After that I became sick and had to spend the next class at my home. During this time I wrote some Haikus (3, show a change in the third line results from a shift in your worldview) and a found poem (choose a text that reveals something about your worldview that is at least 50/100 words, cut in half, write 3-5 sentences at the end showing how you changed the original text). I got a lot of help writing them with my mother dearest so big thanks to her. The next class I was able to be there and we “painted with words.” Aka we played around with alliteration and assonance. Then we read some poem and then off we go to the next period. But not to quick for the teachers to give us the next poem to do. This time it was a imagery one (using alliteration and assonance, 10-15 lines, describe a part of your worldview that you haven’t discussed before). Next class again I was sick at home. I didn’t do the activity that we did in class so I just wrote the Sound poem (10-15 lines, what is the sound of your worldview ). I found the Sound poem a little stupid because its kind of just sound with little meaning. 

Now I really started working on the ebook and finish the last poems experience poem (15-20 lines, using denotation/connotation, mood, and a specific theme, describe an experience that shaped your worldview), personification poem (10-15 lines, personify worldview itself (this could be your group’s poem or you can write your own) and self-portrait poem (25-30 lines, who are you?). After that I really started working on the ebook and adding pictures and poems to it. Now I think thats about it for now. 

See ya around and goodbye, Judah G!`

Lot’s o’ Lazers!

Lot’s o’ Lazers!

Hello! This blog post is the summary and story of my latest Scimatics project, Laser Laws. This project was about learning about the Pythagorean Theorem and then applying that to make a laser display of a right angle triangle. The Driving Question for this project was “How can we test the Pythagorean Theorem and the Law of Reflection?” My group members for this project were Jackson, Caitlin, and Kai.

 

 

 

The first thing we did in this project was look at the launch folder and start working on our mind map. A mind map is something were you put an idea in the middle of a sheet (in our case that was laser laws) and then put ideas and thoughts off. It’s just a way to brainstorm. Then we did something really fun. We were given a laser, a small white bucket, a mirror and some barriers made of wood. What we were to do is put our bucket somewhere and use the barriers to protect it. Then the other team would use there laser and mirror to try to hit it. Mid way through setting the bucket up I had a revaluation. Because of the type of desk we had in our classroom we could jam the bucket underneath a desk and use the barriers to made it near impossible. When both teaks had it set up we look turns setting up firing lasers. Because of the what we were using to make laser still we were able to aim before firing. Now that everyone was ready it was time to fire them! Our team hit it on the first try! But then someone bumped it and the teacher said we had missed! This was terrible! What if the other team hit ours because of the blunder! They aimed, fired… and missed thankfully! We shot again and hit it. Now it was time to do this with our partner class across the hall. Again my team found a great spot. On top off a ledge two meters off the ground! Obviously we won that and completed the first step of a PLP project: Launch.

When doing Building Knowledge in Scimatics we just read and study text and workbooks. I’m not complaining, its a nice break from all the group project chaos of other classes. What does suck about it though is when we have to do the blog post. There barely anything to say that’s interesting. I’ll just give you a run down on what Pythagorean Theorem and the Law of Reflection, ok? Cool. Pythagorean Theorem is a²+b²=c². It is used to see if a triangle is a perfect right angle one. The a, b, and c are variables and you need to replace them with numbers from your triangle. The order of the a and b doesn’t matter, but the c needs to be the hypotenuse (the longest side of a right-angled triangle), or what you think is a hypotenuse if you aren’t sure if its a right triangle. After you have put in your numbers you square them. This means you multiply them by themselves. After that you add them, then you have to find the square root of them and the c. The ² on the c cancels out the square root so it’s now just c. Now you have a number equaling the c. Now that is just one way to use the Pythagorean Theorem and there are other ways to apply it. Now the Law of Reflection. The Law of Reflection states that if a line of light hits a plane mirror it will be reflected at the same angle. Thats not a perfect definition but that’s the gist of it. Now with that MATH out of the way its time to…

…get sick and not be able to help your group the ONE time what we’re doing is in real life. What my group did (or lack there off according to Jackson) was make a cardboard boat, put a coloured piece of paper on cardboard and pick a theme. Now if you think I’m being mean to my group, it was actually Jackson who said this (I paraphrased still). I actually helped with the theme. We ended up choosing the ocean. When I did come in, me and Jackson got some good work done. I got all the measurements down while he worked on the look and the lasers. He helped me with drawing the triangle with pencil to be able to see it if the lasers were off. Kai actually worked on getting some fish to colour and put on the cardboard. The finale class for working on it I was sick again, but Jackson, Caitlin, and Kai got it done. The day that we showed it off with the lasers I was able to be there. What we did was turn on the lasers and then spray some smoke. We had to use smoke because otherwise our naked eyes wouldn’t be able to see them. After that we were assigned this expect blog post which brings us to now. What are we going to do in the next two days of Scimatics? I don’t know. But this is due soon so I need to post it.

The last but not least that I’m going to talk about is my Curricular Competencies. This is the rubric for which I am being graded. I will add a picture so you know what I’m talking about. I think in the first two I am proficient. I almost always am on task in class. And I also created my project successfully that represented the Law of Reflection and the  Pythagorean Theorem. I think I maybe could do that I little better because I was off be about 1 degree but over all I think it was good. The final one however I think I was not as good. I did my best best to help my group with the design of the laser display, however I was sick for most of the days that we had to work on it. I asked if there was anything I could do but there wasn’t anything. But when I did get there I did a lot of work. I worked out all the math for our triangle and the Theorem. I did have some difficultly getting one of my group members to do any work. Part of this was my fault because I couldn’t think of anything for them to work on. Splitting up work is definitely something I should work on.

See ya around and goodbye, Judah G!

 

Universes Beyond; beyond kindness

Magic the Gathering and Universes Beyond

Hello and welcome to my third blog in a mini five part blog series! It this post I will be talking about the VERY controversial topic, a sub-brand in Magic: Universes Beyond. I am definitely not the most informed about this topic so if you want to look in depth in this topic, I would suggest watching this video by Tolarian Community College.

First of all what is Universes Beyond? Universes Beyond is a sub-brand of Magic. In this fairly new product line Wizards of the Coast sells unique cards never seen before… but with a different IP. For instance, Walking Dead which happens to be the first look we see at Universes Beyond. Not only that, but at this point they weren’t going to be printing them ever again. Magic IP or not. People were fuming. A huge problem Magic has is that distribution of cards, and these were expensive and limited! Also this brought up the question; is Magic just going to become I crew the Death Star with Superman? Nobody wanted that. And if you wanted to use these cards you had to use the other IP’s! Will they do any IP? Hell yes! They will suck this cash cow dry until the we kill each other with population!

Nice little card I made as an exmaple.

Well, for once Wizards of the Coast listened. They were going to print Magic IP versions of those cards… in a few years. Well its better than nothing. Actually, Universes Beyond could be really cool if you give the people the choice. It might be frustrating when you wanna have a game and someone pulls out there Fortnite (they are doing that!) cards, but hey you can’t win them all. Now just some things that Universes Beyond is NOT. It is not canonical to the story line. It’s not the Magic “skins” though I wish it was. 

Stay tuned for the finale Magic blog and see ya around and goodbye, Judah G!

Magic Metal Robots are Awesome!

Hello and welcome to my third blog in a mini five part blog series! In this third  blog I will be showing you some of the best art in Magic in my opinion. To any lawyers; no copyright infringement is intended. 

You must be asking yourself, what is this man’s favourite art? Why Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer. Not only is his art amazing, the tokens he creates have amazing art as well. Both of those pieces were done by Daarken, who was hired by Wizards of the Coast Part of the reason I love these pieces is how they incorporate red and blue, the colours of the cards. I also started a simplified fanart of brudiclad.

As you probably noticed I like how the creature Myrs look. Here’s one that you can just see the movement in. It was done by Jana Schirmer & Johannes Voss, hired by Wizards of the Coast.

Here are some of the best art of landscapes in Magics history. First Steam Vents by Piotr Dura, hired by Wizards of the Coast. Also Fabled Passage by Howard Lyon, hired by Wizards of the Coast.

 

This is a link to a series of videos about art of different legendary artists for Magic. This was done by Rhystic Studies on YouTube.

Stay tuned for the next Magic blog and see ya around and goodbye, Judah G!

Most Coool things about Magic!!! Not click bait omg!!

Hello and welcome to my second blog in a mini five part blog series! In this second blog I will be telling you about 3 interesting things about Magic!

I will start by making a list of the things I’ll talk about. Since this is supposed to be shorter, lets just jump into right away now!

  1. Information about Magic Nicknames
  2. The Power Nine
  3. Commander

Now, Magic slang. This is very complicated as there are so much slang in Magic. There can even be slang upon slang. Newer players might get confused about slang that veteran players use without thinking. I don’t have enough time to delve into all of Magics slang but I will provide a link to a (mostly) full list of Magic slang. Nicknames. This isn’t a specific slang but some cards have Nicknames. Gray Merchant of Asphodel is often called Gary because his initials almost spell “Gary.” Sakura-Tribe Elder is better known as Steve. I don’t know why. Then there is Bob. The cards real name is Dark Confidant. The card is called Bob because the original art depicted pro player Bob Maher.

The Power Nine is the next category. There are (big surprise) nine Power Nine. The Power Nine are the most cards in Magic. Some of them cost up to $123500 Canadian dollars. AND that’s even without going into auctions where they are normally sold. Even though the are so expensive none of them are “win the game good.” They just help you get either more cards to play, mana acceleration, or both. They are the five Moxen, Timetwister, Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, and last and defiantly not last, the most powerful card in Magic: the Black Lotus!!!

The final thing I’ll talk about today is the most popular format in Magic: Commander (or EDH)! This is a format where you have a starting “Commander” that you can always cast. They are commonly Legendary Creatures. You also start with 40 life instead of twenty. Your deck is a 100 card singleton deck meaning you can’t have multiples of cards in it (beside Basic Lands and cards that specifically say you can) and there is a hundred cards in it including your commander. The world of commander is so complicated that I couldn’t even fit in in a normal sized blog without writing a novel, so I will instead give you some links. Official page for EDH. The wiki. Youtube guides: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gdozNO_jIs, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jO2fmsef0g, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk3EQdyGT4Y. 

Stay tuned for the next Magic blog and see ya around and goodbye, Judah G!

The Magic of the Best Game, Magic

Hello and welcome to my first blog in a mini five part blog series! In this series I will be detailing one of my favourite hobby’s, Magic: the Gathering! Since I need to churn five of these blogs, these will be smaller. This blog will be about giving you an entry level knowledge of Magic for the other blogs. Now lets jump into it!

Magic is a tabletop and digital collectable card game created by Richard Garfield. It is owned now and run by Wizards of the Coast. (Wotc) Magic was one of the first big CCG, if not the first. It is extremely complex and has many rules. There are generally two people per game but you can really have any amount. There are two archetypes for playing the game, Limited and Constructed. Limited is when you take some random packs of cards and make decks with them on the spot. Limited decks have 40 cards. Constructed is when you take your collection and make a deck to fit the criteria of a format. They have 60+ cards per deck. What’s a format you ask? Why a format is way to play Magic. Different formats have different rules and cards your allowed to use. Here’s a link to the Wotc formats page here.

 The general feel of the rules to begin is this: each turn you get one more “mana.” With that mana you can cast spells. (your cards) You draw one card per turn from your library. (Your deck of cards) To win you traditionally get all your opponents to 0 HealthPoints. (HP) The main way of dealing damage to your opponents is by attacking them with creatures. Creatures are cards that you play that are like animals or monsters. They can be almost anything of that sort. They have a certain amount of HP and Damage that they can deal. When you attack an opponent with a creature, they could have one of their creatures block it. In this situation instead of the opponent taking damage, the the two creatures would fight and try to kill each other. If one of them did, then it would go to your graveyard (the discard pile). Oh one more thing. There are five different elements to choice to play: white, blue, black, red and green. This is the extreme basics and if you want some more info about it while still just learning watch this video here.

Stay tuned for the next Magic blog and see ya around and goodbye, Judah G!