Hello, Internet.

Also: Hello, people who are here in person. Welcome to this year’s Transitional Presentation of Learning, or TPOL.

We’ve done a lot of things since January– visiting Caliornia, participating in Destination Imagination, creating generators, and attending the BC Tech Summit, to name a few –but one of my favourite things we did was our unit on disruption and technology.

This unit involved a lot of different aspects, but the part I want to focus on is the essay we had to write towards the end of the unit. The essay I wrote is one of the things I felt I did really well on this year, and I want to highlight it as something I’m proud of. Writing is one of the areas I feel is a strength for me, and getting to write an essay that brought in topics I’m already interested in– technology, current events, social media –gave me a really good chance to showcase that strength.

Now, you probably remember I did an MPOL back in January where I talked about what I wanted to achieve as a learner before the end of the year. I mentioned that my goal for the rest of the year was to work more on adapting, “rolling with the punches”, and not ansgting over being assigned work that wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do. So, did I complete that goal?

Well, when I talked about this goal originally, I mentioned that I usually go into Destination Imagination with the expectation that it’s going to be stressful or unenjoyable, and having this expectation usually just causes it to be more stressful and unenjoyable.

This year, I wanted to avoid that sort of expectation. I also happened to participate in DI again– and I tried to be a little more objective in terms of how much I did or didn’t like it (which is sort of weird).

Now, doing DI did involve some punches to roll with, such as half of our group not being there for the provincial tournament, but it was far from the worst project we’ve ever done. It did even involve some enjoyable parts, such as making a sign that looked exactly like Shrek but blue, and watching Kyle impersonate Elon Musk. I also learned a lot about various “explorers”, and got to revisit our fantasy unit from last year while researching Alice in Wonderland.

Now, that being said, I still think I have some further work to do with this goal. I’d still like to improve my attitude and be more optimistic about work. However, I want to shift my focus to a new goal (or, in a way, an old goal): working on developing my interpersonal skills. While I have no trouble with public speaking, or speaking in a formal setting like in a debate, I do sometimes get anxious having to speak directly with people I don’t know very well, especially in professional settings like a job interview. This is a goal I’ve worked on in the past, but because being able to communicate with people is such a vital skill, and considering I think it needs more work, I want to revisit it for the upcoming year, especially as I approach the senior years of high school.

Toodles!