Strains and Struggles

I have always struggled with time management, in all aspects of my life, but especially as a student.  Like REALLY struggled. Time management being such an important part of work ethics, it has really affected some of my projects this year.  Of all of my projects, Bon Voyage was really affected by poor time management. (You could say it was not un bon voyage.) I found it really difficult delegating time between this project and Destination Imagination.  This resulted in an incomplete project (something I’m still ashamed of today). But not all the things I’ve struggled with this year were due to time management.  In “It’s the End of the World As We Know It” I feel as if I was doing a pretty good job of staying on top of reading deadlines and overall deadlines.  Regardless, it was still overwhelming (probably because it was my first project) and I am not completely happy with the end result of the song.  But my struggles don’t end there.  The project “Blogging Challenge” introduced me to a whole whirlwind of struggles.  For the majority of this year, blog posts have been my nightmare though as of late I think I’ve got the hang of it (but I’ll get to that later).  When we were very first introduced to writing blog posts, I was still trying to understand the methods for assignments in PLP.  But like a befuddled bat, I was having no luck.  This ended up being one of my greatest downfalls, causing me to give up on trying to learn how to write an engaging blog post.  But enough of my battles with blog posts.  Let’s move on to my frustrations within PLP.  As I previously stated, I was a little lost at the beginning of the year.  I feel one of the biggest reasons for my confusion was my issues interpreting the language in the assignments.  Although over time I have learnt to decode my teachers’ instructions (but my past self would think it presumptuous to call them instructions), now I am proud to say I am the Sherlock Holmes of deducing directions.  One of the ways I have been solving these cases has been through Craft (I am a true Craft fanatic).  Craft has opened my eyes to notetaking, something that in my past has been quite triggering.

Detours and Dissatisfactions

As any intelligent person has probably deduced, struggling is something I am quite adept at.  But even I do not have to struggle to be unsatisfied with my work.  Being the inquisitive detective that I am, I have acquainted myself with my less than stellar abilities to delegate time between personal Iife and studies.  Unfortunately, in several of my projects, I have been a bit presumptuous about what I think I can handle for workload.  This has caused me to feel like I am drowning in work on more than several occasions.  Regardless of my previous FAILs in this regard, I am determined to improve on balancing my work and personal life. I am going to diligently practice allocating tasks properly within group work and more accurately evaluating what I am capable of, based on time limitations (for sadly, I am not Dr. Who and do not have a tardis). Due to the fact that my brain is ever chasing serotonin and, as I previously stated, my sub par work-life balance skills, I (on occasion) leave projects unfinished.  Improving upon this is something I have been working on for many a year, to no avail.  But I believe with some of the new skills from PLP, I can overcome this block (and conquer the universe).   This year, in PLP I have been able to hone my skills in creating interest or finding interest in something that usually bores me. I’m going to put these new skills to good use by, in future, finishing all of the projects that come my way.  Time management being so vital to PLP and school in general, excelling in this skill would be extremely beneficial (yes, I know I already talked about time management).  One step I have taken to improve in this area is to participate in executive function coaching.  Although it was only for a few weeks, this experience has greatly improved my ability to organize my time.  While being perfect is something that is out of reach as a presumably mortal being, going back and improving on past projects is in the range of my capabilities.  So if I were to do so, I would specifically go back and apply the same amount of effort I think I showed in the Winter Exhibition and Destination Imagination to Becoming a PLP Learner, PowerPlay or How It Started, and Bon Voyage.

A Preamble to My Pride

At the beginning of this year, my anxiety and sensory issues were having a party in my brain.  As fun as that sounds, it affected my school and personal life in less than desirable ways.  My anxiety stopped me from doing things that would have greatly helped to improve my school work such as showing up to tutorial and generally being more mentally present in classes.  But working through these challenges has given me an appreciation and caused me to be very proud of small things that many other people might overlook like going into supermarkets, entering malls, talking to new people, and getting through the day without a panic attack. As I stated, my anxiety was truly a tyrant in my life so I would like to say (while shining with pride) I was capable of performing at Destination Imagination and even winning first place three times, once in Regionals and twice at Provincials. But this wasn’t because of my improved performance skills.  My presentation also benefitted from the hours of work I spent on the design and execution of the props to make sure they looked as good as possible (but not perfect ☹️). Props are something that I am often proud of in my work.  Another example of my prop making progress are the ones I created for the Winter Exhibition tableaus (arguably superior props).  

Instances of Improvement

As I started term 2, I felt like I was thrust into a new world when I entered the science lab. Initially, the science room was my escape from the chaos of high school (because I just sat there like a lump).  But once I got into a rhythm I was able to bound forward as if I was in Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker.  Earlier in this section I stated how I was a little disconnected during Building Knowledge.  This was not a catastrophic event because I was already quite familiar with the content that we were learning.  But when it came time to create the final piece of “Mind Over Matter” I felt as if a tempest had blown through my life and turned it upside down. This was due to my unfamiliarity and frustration with Scratch (but believe me, I really tried, I really did). As Shakespeare says, to be or not to be, I chose to be, although in a different way.  I adapted this project to better suit my strengths by creating a stop motion representation of what I would want my video game to look like. As you can observe, I persevered through difficult times by changing my surroundings instead of myself.  In addition to improving in my perseverance, I also made leaps in my overall understanding of classwork. Using Craft, I now take notes in all my classes, not just PLP classes.  In doing this, I am basically translating the lessons into code my brain can understand.  The way that Craft is structured keeps me engaged by being able to put documents inside documents and so on and so forth.  Truly, Craft has become the Romeo to my Juliet. (Not to sound presumptuous, but I have become a Craft master). 

Proof of Progression

I am aware that I have talked about what I improved on but how do I know I’ve improved? You may think that this blog post is a lot of back and forth because I do touch on the same things in different areas.  But all the learning that I have done this year is intertwined and connected in ways I would probably rather describe in a poem.  For it is too abstract for the common English language.  As I stated, I’m going to be going back and forth a lot, so let’s talk more about blog posts.  In regards to blog posts, it was an epiphany of sorts.  It all just clicked right there right then.  I give this credit to Milaina.  Looking at her blog post opened my eyes to a new style of writing and I truly feel it has improved the quality of my blog.  I hope that after this renaissance in blog writing I will be able to continue expressing myself in eloquent and engaging ways.  But how do you know I’m not lying?  I could have been fibbing this entire time.  But I’m not, I have proof.  Here, take a look at one of my first blog posts. Becoming a PLP learner post It’s unengaging and, in my opinion, doesn’t go deep enough into the topic.  On the other hand, here is one of my latest blog posts, Welcome to the chaos of personals (something I am rather proud of).  While often progress is slow, I do adore when it all clicks (for I am rather impatient).  Improvement is an important part of PLP (for without improvement, what are we?).  However, there are other core parts of PLP, one being when you “FAIL.” Also, known as a First Attempt In Learning, I have experienced many of these throughout my life and especially in PLP.  But I have procured for you some of my most prominent FAILs, for instance when The Blizzard Wizards (my DI team) messed up our lines in our Provincial presentation for Destination Imagination.  This was an embarrassing experience.  As we all know, failure is an important part of learning and with failure comes embarrassment.  Although we messed up our lines, we made huge leaps in areas of performance skills (personally, I don’t think it was worth the trade off, but our two first place medals say otherwise.) Failure comes in all forms.  Sometimes no one else gets to see it (excluding teachers of course).  My project, “Becoming a PLP Learner” falls under this category.  It was a project full of twists and turns, ups and downs, but mostly learning new skills, something at the beginning of this year I was not so great at.  While being in PLP, I believe I have learned how to learn more proficiently (e.g. learning to use Craft overnight).  This has made recent projects sooooooooooo much easier.  My brain developed a lot this year, by encountering new challenges and new philosophies/ways of thinking.

SoLI Seminar

To start off this year, we wrote a Statement of Learning Intent.  Personally, I am quite familiar with this form of documenting learning progress. Being a neurodivergent student comes with challenges but it also comes with an IEP (aka the most awesome learning tool ever, when people read them) which is quite similar to MPoLs.  But it’s specifically geared towards how people can help me.  Writing an IEP is a whole ordeal so I’ve never done it by myself.  This made me rather less experienced than I would like to admit when it comes to writing these kinds of statements.   Because you would think a kid who spent basically their whole school career writing what they want to achieve in learning would be able to write a good SoLI.  But no. The draft I submitted for my SoLI was, if you ask me, rather pathetic.  Here, see for yourself. “This year I plan to get better at focussing, participating, and asking for help.” Sigh.  Shameful.  But luckily I am not one to just let things rest (especially if they are sub par) so, without further ado, let me introduce Statement of Learning Intent 2.0!!! “For the rest of this year, I plan to continue to search for effective strategies in managing my sensory issues to be able to focus better in class. I would also like to acknowledge that I have come very far in participating. Although I have space to improve in teamwork, collaboration, and in-class work. As far as asking for help goes, I believe I still have room to grow in this category. The way I plan to improve on this skill is by continuously going to tutorial, something my anxiety has stopped me from doing in the past. I have recently overcome this block and will be making continuous appearances in tutorial.” Oh! Isn’t it beautiful? Indeed a masterpiece to challenge Mona Lisa herself. While I’ve said a lot, in this blog post, all feasts must come to an end. And if you’re at any respectable feast, they end with dessert. So here let your eyes feast upon a magnificent conclusion.

Dessert

I truly love learning. It is something I strive to be extending at and something I want to devote the rest of my life to because really we never stop learning. Although my journey with learning through my life has been a difficult one, I hope I never give up even if it gets difficult. But I believe even through tough times I will be able to persevere, for I have shown my strength in the face of adversity in the past. I know what I am capable of and I hope I can continue to improve upon showing you what I have learned.