Recently, we’ve been making podcasts to show our learning about World War One. We were each asked to choose one soldier who fought in WWI, tell a story about their life, and answer the driving question: How did WWI shape Canada’s identity as a nation?
The soldier I chose to focus on was a man called Herbert Peterson. He disappeared in a battle in 1917, and his bones were found, identified and buried almost a century later. This story can be seen as a literal example of the way World War One has left us with “skeletons”; consequences and effects of the war that have not fully gone away even today.
In the process of making this podcast, I did research, wrote a script, and recorded a version with that script before realizing that I wasn’t telling the story the way I wanted to be telling it.
My original script started off as follows:
Hi. So, today we’ll be talking about World War One, and more specifically about the story of a soldier called Herbert Peterson.
Private Herbert Peterson was born in Scranton, Kansas, on December 18, 1895, to Julia and Charles G. Peterson. A little less than 21 years later, in Calgary, Alberta on February 22, 1916, he enlisted to go to war. On the day of his enlistment, notes were made of everything from his hair colour to the three small scars on his upper arm, and after a medical examination, he was declared fit to serve as a soldier. He served in the Alberta regiment of the Canadian Infantry.
While the information I started out with was interesting, and introduced Herbert Peterson, I thought it made the story feel a little boring as it played out. Eventually, I decided to start off the podcast with the interesting part of the story, then go back and explain the backstory later. I also decided to drop the introduction altogether, and I think the podcast is better for it.
So, we’ve been learning a bit about the time directly preceding World War One, and why WWI happened. We were each asked to read four theses about what started WWI, and then write a blog post (and create a supporting visual) explaining what we think happened.
The two main alliances at the time of World War One were the Triple Alliance (Italy, Germany and Austria-Hungary), and the Triple Entente (Great Britain, France, and Russia). Due to technological progress, there was an arms race happening that built tensions across Europe. The railway gave people quick mobility. At this point, there was a lot of propoganda encouraging a war, and not much being done to prevent it. Eventually, a short war was proposed in 1914, and it ended up leading into World War One.
So, three days into the new school year, we took a class trip to Camp Capilano, a place I haven’t been for several years. Camp Capilano, which is about a twenty minute drive from our school, and where we stayed for one night, basically consists of two dorm rooms full of bunk beds, a kitchen, a common room, a dining room, and a pool, and is pretty much surrounded by forest except for the house of the people who own the place.
We went away both as a class bonding activity, and to give us a chance to do some assignments with audio, which we’ll be focusing on this year. (In grade eight we worked mostly with still image, and in grade nine we worked with video.)
That being said, the first thing we did was to split off into groups and make videos. Specifically, we had to make “reality tv intros” that introduced ten characters in 45 seconds or less.
Later on, we took the premises from our videos and created short audio clips with the same goal of introducing ten characters. This was a little more difficult, since each group only had about five people, so we had to find ways to make distinctions between the different characters we voiced.
Our main project for the trip, however, was to, with a partner, make a four-minute audio clip that told a story about identity.
It took a while to come up with a suitable idea, but we eventually settled on a story about Ruby, who I was working with, first writing off and then learning to like musical theatre.
Once we had our idea, we wrote a script, recorded the audio, and discovered that it was only two minutes long.
At this point we went about trying to make it longer by adding more details into the story, wrapping things up at the end, and eventually adding background music which also acted as an intro and outro to the podcast.
So, September is here, and school has started back up once again. One of the assignments we’re doing to kick off the year is each setting a few S.M.A.R.T. Goals in different areas of our lives.
The acronym S.M.A.R.T. stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant (also Rigorous, Realstic and Results-focused), and Timely (or Trackable). It’s used to help people set and achieve goals.
We each had to set three goals: one about school learning, one about out-of-school learning, and one about character growth. We also had to record these goals, and create a visual to go with each of them.
My first goal was to do with my in-school learning. This year, I would like to learn to utilize Explain Everything by researching how to use it, and using my own time to look at and learn to use the different features.
So, does that goal follow the acronym? I’d say yes.
Well, to start out, I’d say it’s pretty specific; saying I’d like to “learn to utilize Explain Everything” is kind of vague, but I followed it up with a specific explanation of how I’d like to achieve my goal.
I think it is measurable. We weren’t given a certain amount of time to aim to complete our goals in, but I’d like to improve my Explain Everything skills within the next two weeks. I’d like to research what can be done with Explain Everything, because I’m not totally sure, designate four specific things that I want to learn how to do, and go through and learn each of them.
The goal is attainable. I already have Explain Everything downloaded and know a little bit about how to use it, I just want to learn more, so it’s doable, and two weeks should be enough time. However, it’s not so much time that I would quickly lose focus from my goal.
The goal is relevant because Explain Everything is a tool that I use for school, but it’s also something I occasionally find frustrating or confusing, so it would be helpful to me to learn more about it.
Finally, the goal is timely. As I mentioned, two weeks is enough time to get it done, but not so much time that I’ll never get started, or that I’ll lose focus.
This was my visual for this goal:
My second goal was about out-of-school learning. I would like to learn how to dress, speak, and act more professionally.
I think this goal is pretty specific, but to make it a bit more so: I would like to break some habits I have such as overusing the word “like” where it isn’t needed, trailing off sentences, or sitting on tables, which I might not want to do in a professional setting, as well as learning to dress more professionally if needed.
This goal is measurable; there are specific habits I want to break and things I want to achieve, so although I might not be able to go, “I sat on one less table today than yesterday”, I know what I want to accomplish, and can take steps to accomplish those things.
I think this goal is attainable. Similarly to with my goal about Explain Everything, I’m not starting from scratch, but instead building off of prior knowledge and experience; I know how to act and dress somewhat professionally, I just have some things I want to do to improve so I can be more professional when needed.
There are many areas in my life where it’s helpful to me to be able to act professional every once in a while, but this goal is particularly relevant at the moment because I’m about to start my first job, so having a professional demeanour and style will be important.
While developing the ability to act professional when needed is something I’d like to work on as an ongoing thing, I’d like to
achieve this goal in the next fifteen days, or about half a month.
This was my visual for this goal:
My final goal, related to my own personal character growth, is that I would like to procrastinate less, and to help myself start to do this, the next four things I recognize myself procrastinating on, I’d like to make an effort sit down and get done.
This goal is specific; I want to identifty four things, from any area of my life, and accomplish them in a timely manner.
This goal is measurable. I have an amount of things I want to do, and I’ll have a clear idea whether or not I do them.
This goal is attainable; four things isn’t many, so as long as I know I have a goal, and I can recognize when I’m procrastinating, attaining this goal should be realistic.
This goal is pretty relevant, considering how often I procrastinate.
I didn’t allot myself a certain amount of time to accomplish this goal, because I don’t think it makes sense to put a time limit on “the next four times I notice I’m procrastinating”, but it is trackable.
This was my visual for this goal:
Here’s the recording, as well as the visuals, for all my goals (I apologize if I sound a bit nasal. I’ve been kind of sick.):
So, we’ve been learning about Canadian history in social studies. We’ve covered quite a lot of Canadian history in the past month and a half or so, and done a variety of assignments about it. Now that we’re wrapping up the school year, however, we’ve been given an assignment to each decide which moment in Canadian history, of the ones we’ve learned about, is the greatest, and justify why.
Before I get into which moment of Canadian history I think is the greatest, I should talk about (or, rather, write about) some of the past work we’ve done in this unit.
We’ve done a couple different assignments involving writing paragraphs; one on either Jean Talon, Count Frontenac, or Francois de Laval (I chose to write about Jean Talon), and one on Durham’s Report.
We also had to create a recruitment poster for railway workers.
My favourite assignment we’ve done for this unit is the Character Card; an assignment based around creating a card about what life would be like for a theoretical person during the Cariboo Gold Rush.
I chose to do mine about a shopkeeper, because I thought it would be interesting to focus on someone who wasn’t there as a gold miner. It did end up making it more difficult to research what life would have been like, but it did end up being interesting.
We also did an assignment relating to Confederation. This assignment involved writing a speech that was either pro-confederation, anti-confederation, or pro-annexation. I ended up being assigned to write an anti-confederation speech, which I found difficult, as I disagreed with the point of view I was writing from, and I don’t feel I really ended up doing a good job writing it.
The speech I ultimately came up with is as follows:
Joining confederation now will sap us of the opportunity to be independent; the opportunity to have a government that makes decisions in our own best interests. How do we know that they will not neglect our needs in favour of those of the easterners? Is it not better to know that we must take care of ourselves? If we join confederation, we are attaching ourselves to a country that we don’t need to be a part of. We will become indebted to them; in a way, we will be controlled by them. Instead, we should go on alone, apart from Canada and their government and ideas and plans.
If we stay as an independent nation independent from Canada, we can face the events of the future in our own way, on our own terms. Less people means less conflict to worry about; we shouldn’t have to take on all of Canada’s problems alongside the problems we have ourselves. Nor should we have to ask the Canadian government to attempt to solve our problems; anything that we got ourselves into, we should get ourselves out of. That being said, we must get ourselves out of the crippling debt that we are in; if we let Canada pay it off as they have promised to do if we join confederation, then we are not out of debt, it is only in a different place. We ourselves need to be the ones who are in control of our economy, or else our economy will falter and fail.
If we do join Canada, for whatever reason, then how do we really know that they will take the time to address our needs? Canada has their own needs to take care of, and they’re sure to favour the needs of those who have been with them a long time, rather than the needs of a new group of people joining them, especially when we join them at a time when we are so in debt, and don’t seem to be in a stable state. Sure, they’ve made promises to convince us to join: money, an extension of the railroad. These aren’t promises to take care of our needs long-term, but rather terms meant to lure us in so they can have power. Canada is already a stable country without us; if we do decide to join them, we may very well end up being dependent on a government we cannot and should not depend on.
The ideal decision for us to make here is not to join confederation and take a chance on putting our valuable future in the hands of others, but rather to go forth as best we can without assistance, and form our own government. We will lead a future where we live on our own land, with our own resources, under our own government. With less people, the British Columbian government can take more time to listen to everyone, everyone’s needs can be addressed and perhaps someday everyone can be happy.
Now, as I mentioned before, I completely disagree with this view. In fact, I think Confederation was probably the greatest moment that we learned about in this unit. There are a few different reasons that I think this is the greatest moment; for one thing, it resulted in BC becoming a part of Canada, which has had a pretty positive impact on my life, not to mention countless others. For another thing, while a lot of the moments in Canadian history that we learned about seemed to involve people being pretty horrible to one another, often due to racism, Confederarion was more focussed on everyone trying to get something positive to happen.
To further *illustrate* my point, I’ve drawn a comic about why BC joining Confederarion was the greatest moment in Canadian history.
So, we’ve just had our spring exhibition . It was a little different this year than the one last spring, and personally, I feel that my project went a lot better this time around.
So, the basic guidelines this year were:
• you must solve a problem
• your problem must apply to either tweens, toddlers, elders or pets
• you must have at least three drafts to present at the exhibition
I chose to solve the problem of math being anxiety-inducing or hard to engage with for tweens. I decided to solve this problem by creating a math-based video game, although when I decided this I had no idea what I wanted the game mechanics to be. Basically, I knew that I needed to make a game that was non-violent, non-stressful, not confusing, and still taught math.
I’ve had some experience with programming before, mostly in the language Python, but in order to present the game with a mobile device, I needed to learn a new way to program.
I eventually came up with a basic concept for a game, and programmed a few drafts of it in an app called SketchNation before deciding that I needed more freedom in order to program the game I wanted.
The idea I was working with at this point was to have a player move from one side of a screen to the other, with obstacles that represented different numbers, and a scoring system based on factors of a given number equalling positive points, multiples of the same number being neutral, and other numbers equalling negative points. This idea remained pretty close to the game I ultimately created, although I had initially hoped to have different levels, each with a different number for the points system to be based around, and for the game to be called The X Factor. I ended up not having enough time to program separate levels, and sticking with a points system based around the number 8.
In keeping with my plan to have the player move across the screen, I set up a purple box to act as the goal point, which would reset the game when a player navigated to it. I would later realize that it made more sense for the goal of the game to be collecting all the factors of eight, and to just keep the box around as a reset button. However, this didn’t occur to me until after my next draft.
During said next draft of my game, I covered almost the entire screen in numbers in the hopes of making the goal of getting to the purple box with a positive score more interesting. I also made each number disappear after it was hit, so that you couldn’t rack up points by just hitting the same number over and over again.
At this point, I asked a few of my tween neighbours to try out the game and give me feedback. I took into account both their direct feedback, and their reactions to things during the gameplay.
Besides changing the goal of the game to “collect all the twos and fours”, the main changes I made in my final draft were to decrease the amount of numbers on the screen, bring the number six into play, and add instructions to the description of the game.
My actual project aside, the exhibition took some preparation. I was in a group of 23 people who were creating solutions for problems that applied to tweens, so we had to decorate an area of the school library to look tween-themed. This was achieved mainly through the use of posters, a whiteboard, funko pops and balloons. We also had chips, pop, candy, and pizza-themed cookies available for people to eat and drink.
I quite enjoyed this year’s exhibition, although not that many people seemed to take an interest in my project (most seemed deterred by the mention of math).
So, as I’ve mentioned, we’re currently doing a unit in Health and Career. One of our assignments for this, my favourite so far, involved creating a keynote presentation entitled “The Things I Carry”.
The idea of this presentation is that each person comes up with ten physical or mental things that they carry with them that affect their daily life or who they are.
My ten things were as follows:
1. Headphones
2. Phone
3. Creativity
4. Privilege/opportunity
5. Fan culture/pop culture
6. Anxieties/insecurities
7. Introversion
8. Work ethic
9. Words/language
10. Sense of humour
I don’t really have a lot of physical things that I carry with me at all times, so I focussed more on the mental side of things.
Here’s my keynote:
I started off with talking about the physical things I carry with me, beginning with my headphones.
I go through a lot of headphones, mostly because I lose or break them from using them all the time. While I had considered just putting music down as one of the things I carry, music is only a part of what my headphones represent. I carry headphones with me a lot of the time because they act as a source of privacy even when I’m out in public. As someone who finds it draining to spend too much time around a lot of people, having a small source of privacy makes me feel a lot better when I get stressed or tired out.
The other physical thing I carry with me is my phone. I don’t spend a lot of time on my phone, at least in comparison to the stereotypical teenager, largely due to the fact that I use my iPad for a lot of things. However, I usually bring my phone with me if I’m going somewhere, because I need the ability to communicate with my parents or friends, and because it’s useful as a camera and as a way to get or store information.
One of the mental things I carry with me is my creativity, which manifests itself in a variety of ways: playing piano, drawing, singing, writing, and making the occasional hat, candle or doll dress. Being creative has always been a big part of who I am, and I enjoy being able to look back on the things that I have created over the years.
The next thing that I carry with me is one that I had trouble putting a word to, but I eventually decided on “privilege”. A lot of the things in my life, such as where I live, the opportunity to go to school, my family, my community, or the amount of travelling I’ve been able to do, are things I didn’t choose or earn in any way, but which have ended up being big, usually postitive, influences on my life.
One of the things I carry with me is fan culture, or pop culture, and this is something that ties in to a lot of the other things I carry with me. There are a lot of areas of pop culture that appeal to and influence me, the prevalent ones being YouTube, music, books, movies and TV. The things that I’m a fan of are often an inspiration for my creative outlets; for instance, this drawing that I did.
Something that I carry with me that isn’t quite so positive is my anxieties and fears. These are mostly basic things: Am I doing well at school? Do I look okay? Am I saying something offensive without realizing it? Am I making good choices? Even the most basic of fears, however, can still be a big part of one’s life, and these daily fears and anxieties are definitely a big part of mine. However, like everyone else, I do my best to accept or overcome them.
The next thing I carry with my is my introversion, which I’ve seen viewed as a negative thing before, but I personally think can be positive, and has had a lot of positive effects on my life. I like to spend time alone, which gives me a chance to do the things that I enjoy, such as writing, or focus on the things I need to do, such as doing homework. Being introverted has also made me independent, which can often be useful or important.
My work ethic is something that I’ve carried with me for as long as I can remember. I feel a strong need to do well at everything I do, or at least to do the best I can, and if I don’t put my best effort in, I don’t feel satisified with the end result. This is something that helps me attain goals, as well as learn new skills or learn about new topics.
One thing that I carry with me is my love of words and language. I enjoy learning about the structure or etymology of words, as well as wordplay and puns. I also like reading and writing a lot, and I find it easier to express myself through the written word than I do just through speaking.
The last thing I carry with me is my sense of humour, which is composed mostly of puns, pop cultural references, sarcasm, self-deprecation, irony and memes. My sense of humour is something that seems to annoy or confuse a lot of people, but it’s something that helps me communicate or connect with the people around me.
The things that I carry with me might change over the years, and they have changed throughout my life, but they will always be a part of who I am.
So, we’ve been working on health and career. As suggested by the name “health and career”, one of the aspects of this unit is career goals and planning.
Now, learning about this involved a couple of different things. Before you can start thinking about the future, you have to understand how you got to where you are now, so we began by each making a timeline of our lives thus far.
I had some trouble figuring out what events in my life were important enough to go on this timeline, but I eventually decided to go with the points at which I began to do things that I would continue to do for years afterwards.
The next part of our career study was doing a piece of writing detailing the steps to becoming “gifted” at something. There are a lot of things that I’m not gifted at, but I chose to write about baking.
My steps to becoming gifted at baking were as follows:
Step One: Practice. Find recipes, find ingredients, find utensils. Keep trying.
Step Two: Identify what you’re doing wrong. Burnt cookies? Non-buttered pan? Accidentally put whipping cream in the wrong bowl? Understand your mistakes so you know not to make them again.
Step Three: If needed, get help from someone who’s already gifted. Ask questions. Pay attention. Figure out why they are gifted.
Step Four: Research. If you’re still having trouble, try and find out what you need to do to become better. Get as much information as you possibly can, even if you might not need it.
Step Five: Practice more. Apply what you’ve learned. Try out new or more difficult recipes.
Step Six: Get feedback. Find out what other people think of your abilities. If needed, adapt to their needs or specifications.
Step Seven: Don’t give up. Nobody can be perfect at doing something. You will occasionally mess up something beyond repair. Remember that that’s fine.
Step Eight: Take breaks. Learn other skills that might be helpful to you.
That being done, we went on to take some aptitude tests. I found the results to mine a bit confusing and not all that appealing, but taking the tests was interesting.
Now, I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up. I have some ideas about what I’d like to study in university, but I don’t know where that’s leading in terms of a job, other than I want to be as financially stable as I can and hopefully do something I enjoy. This lack of a plan or dream made the next part of this assignment kind of difficult.
So, the main part of this assignment consisted of creating a video in which you had to introduce yourself and then tell a fairytale about your ideal future career. I don’t have an ideal future career yet, so I decided to continue down the vein of my writing assignment from before, and explore a potential career in baking.
While I’m not sure baking is actually a career I would be interested in persueing, this was a fun video to make, and it would be interesting to have a career doing something I enjoy.
So we’ve done a crosscurricular project that combines math, science, socials and English all into one. This project basically consisted of creating a “math monster” and a “Frankenstuffy” (a creature made from pieces of cut-up stuffies), writing an epistolary story about them, and then turning part of that story into a video. The constraints for the plotline of the story were that the Frankenstuffy must adapt to some environmental change, that the story must take place in a specific region of Canada (which we were assigned), and the aforementioned epistolary formatting.
I initially focussed pretty heavily on my math monster in my story, but later evened it out so it focussed evenly on the monster and the Frankenstuffy, and didn’t even use my math monster in my video. I actually thought that my story, and the inclusion of the math monster, was much stronger than my video, but I think they both went alright.
This is my storyboard:
This is how the story ended up going:
1.
Hey sis,
I think I’ve finally found a place that would be okay for us to stay. I’m going to stay here for a while, maybe a few weeks or so, and try and create a suitable place to live. Right now I’m exploring; it’s partially tundra, partially snowy, and there seems to be a large body of water curving around the area, like a river, but stagnant enough that it’s frozen completely solid. I’m thinking of trying to melt a hole in the ice at some point; it looks deep enough that there might be fish.
There aren’t really any landmarks around here; the tundra is covered in a lot of grasses and shrubs and not much else, and I haven’t seen that many animals. I did briefly see an arctic wolf who seemed to be exploring the area, just like me. At least I think it was exploring, because it looked a little lost, and it didn’t really seem to have much of a purpose. I don’t really know how to tell much about other animals around here yet.
I haven’t really considered how my changing the area might affect other animals. I’ve been so busy trying to get away from humans that I pretty much forgot other animals existed– I’ll have to keep an eye on this wolf if I see it again. I don’t want to interfere too much with the established life around here, although I guess that’s inevitable if I’m messing with the environment. I’m mostly just aiming to fit in without massive negative consequences. I hate to admit it, but I’m actually a bit scared.
Anyways, how are things with everyone there? Its kind of lonely being the only yeti around, but if it means getting away from the potential danger of humans, it’s worth it. I miss you all already, but I promise to write everyday– I just wish I could actually send these letters to you somehow.
That’s okay. I’ll give them to you when I see you again.
I promise to be home soon,
Your brother,
Marshall.
P.S.– I don’t really want to keep referring to the wolf as “it”, so for all intents and purposes I am now calling the wolf Snowy. This is assuming that I’ll actually see Snowy again at any point, and that I’ll even be able to identify the same wolf twice, because otherwise giving a name to a totally random wolf is completely pointless, but it makes me feel slightly less alone.
2.
Dear Diary,
Today I saw a strange creature, one I’ve never seen before. It didn’t seem particularly threatening, but I couldn’t help but get the feeling it was watching me. I haven’t seen any fellow wolves for three days, and I’m starting to wonder if something has gone very, very wrong because I thought they would be here.
I had a near-death experience today! I noticed that there was a hole in the ice that wasn’t there before– probably something to do with that strange creature I saw, come to think of it. I bet it was a trap. Anyways, if it was a trap, it worked, because I fell in, and I’m not sure how it happened, but I got stuck underneath the ice, and I totally thought I was about to die! Good news, though– I made it out alive, and there’s no way I’m making that mistake again. I’m sure this strange new creature can’t mess things up for me too much.
You have no idea how scary it was almost drowning. It’s so… cold. I mean, living in the Arctic, I’m used to the cold, but this was different. Sort of an internal cold, like all of the life had been drained out of me, and what I could feel was death seeping in. It’s weird, because I should have been frantic, clawing and scratching at the ice above me, fighting for life, trying to get out, but for a few seconds, I just felt this strange calm… Maybe it was the smothering silence of being underwater keeping me from moving, and maybe it was the darkness, and maybe it was the cold, but there was a moment before the panic set in where I felt like I could have stayed where I was forever…
Maybe there is something wrong with this place.
Oh, well. There aren’t any other wolves here anyway, and it’s not like I’ve been here long enough to form a lasting attachment to this place; if things get too bad, I’ll just move on. For now, though, I think I’m going to stay– I’m not a huge fan of wandering from place to place all the time. I like to know that I have a home that I can come back to, somewhere that feels safe and predictable, where there’s enough food and not too much danger, and where people aren’t setting traps for me to fall into!
It probably wasn’t a trap. I don’t know. I don’t trust that strange creature…
Anywho, if I can make it through tomorrow without any surprise swimming sessions, it will be significantly better than today. Even if it involves swimming, and just not almost dying, it will still be significantly better than today.
Sweet dreams, Diary!
3.
Hey, sis,
So, today I melted through a patch of the ice, and I’m pretty sure I saw a few fish swimming around, so there’s a potential food source there. I’m not sure how I would get at them though; my main hunting method at the moment consists of freezing birds in the air to kill them, and then warming them up enough to eat. The ability to control temperature has been very convenient for me. I kind of feel like there should be a downside.
Well, I guess there sort of is a downside: Snowy fell in the water at least once, and possibly more times, and got briefly trapped under the ice. Arctic wolves aren’t bad swimmers, and Snowy was able to get out okay, but getting trapped under the ice seems like a potential way to drown. Like I said in my last letter, it’s inevitable that I’ll cause some problems trying to settle in here, but almost drowning the creature I chose to personally observe isn’t a great start.
Besides almost drowning the only creature I’ve developed an attachment to, things have been going pretty well here. I still wish you all were here with me, or that I could be back home with you, but I guess that will happen soon enough.
Sorry to cut this letter short, but I just saw a bird flutter past, and my stomach is grumbling.
See you soon,
Your brother,
Marshall.
4.
Dear Diary,
Okay, so you remember how I fell through a hole in the ice a few days ago and said that I never wanted to make that mistake again?
Of course you don’t; you’re a diary, you don’t have memories, but that’s not the point.
The point is, I haven’t been able to sleep since. I’ve been up for days with this awful stomachache, and my mind has been going a mile a minute thinking about the feeling of being underwater. I know I shouldn’t go back, but I’m sure as long as I’m careful it can’t hurt. I don’t know what it is, exactly, but there’s something very intriguing about the water… Something that perhaps deserves further investigation.
To some extent, I just want to lie here, because of the stomachache and all, but I honestly don’t know how long it’s going to last, and I’m tired of doing nothing but thinking. It’s kind of weird that I have a stomachache. I mean, I don’t understand what it’s from– I haven’t eaten anything weird recently, just the regular hares and foxes, and pretty much all fresh meat.
I’ve seen the strange creature a few more times, but it only seemed to be passing by; I didn’t get the feeling that it was watching me like I did the first few times I saw it. Maybe it’s given up on me and gone to watch something else. It must be pretty boring watching someone with a stomachache, actually, because I’ve been trying to avoid moving as much as possible for a few days now. Hopefully this means that the strange creature really has moved on, and that at least one good thing has come of all this useless pain.
Anyways, I’m hoping that by tomorrow I’ll be feeling well enough to go take another look at the water, because there’s no way I’m getting any sleep until I go back and convince myself that there is nothing of interest to me there. Well, actually, there might be fish, which do interest me. It’s been a long time since I’ve had fish. Back when I lived near the sea–
But maybe I’ll talk about that later.
Right now, it’s time to fruitlessly lie awake for the night.
Sweet dreams, Diary.
5.
Hey sis,
So, I’ve been expanding the hole in the ice. I’m hoping to find a way to get at the fish; I don’t really want to swim, and I can’t reach them on my own, but perhaps if I can construct some sort of device to act as a spear or a net I can kill them using a technique similar to what I’ve been doing with the birds. If I find a reasonable way to get at the fish, I might try and create some more gaps in the ice. More potential food sources are usually a good thing, and that will hold true even more once the rest of you get here.
I’ve also been working on thawing out some of the dirt in the grassy/shrubby area here. It’s not completely frozen solid, obviously, or the grass and shrubs wouldn’t be able to grow, but I dug into it a bit and further down its pretty much frozen. I’m hoping there’s a chance of getting some more plants to grow here; it’s very barren, and I feel strangely exposed being here by myself.
I have, however, built myself an igloo to sleep in, so it’s not quite as barren. It’s actually been nice being in an enclosed space; I’m not as lonely if I can pretend that everyone I care about is actually just outside and not hundreds of miles away.
Speaking of being lonely, I haven’t seen any sign of Snowy lately. I’m starting to worry that she actually may have fallen into the water again and drowned. Hopefully that’s not the case; I may have mentioned this in a previous letter or something, but I really don’t want to be responsible for Snowy’s death.
Tell everybody that I say hello, and stay safe. I’ll be home before you know it, and then you can all come back here and see this new world I’m putting together.
Miss you lots,
Your brother,
Marshall.
6.
Dear Diary,
So, I’ve discovered the reason for my stomachache: I’m growing fins.
When I woke up today, after finally falling asleep, they were there, growing in like new teeth, slightly bloody from breaking the skin of my stomach open, but otherwise completely normal looking.
Unsure exactly what to do with this discovery, I decided to carry on with my original plan of going back to check out the water again.
When I got there, I discovered that the hole in the ice had gotten much bigger, and that there seemed to be a set of stairs crudely cut into the edge of the ice leading down into the water. So, I did what anybody would do: I tentatively made my way down the steps.
I stayed there for a few moments, gazing blankly into the water. It looked inviting; refreshing, and now there was more room to swim, and this staircase here so it would be easier to get out. It could be like swimming in the sea again; not trapped, not drowning, just swimming. And the fact that I had fins growing out of my stomach had to mean something, right?
So I stepped into the water. And it stung, because my stomach had just been ripped open by the two fins growing out of it, but after the immediate pain wore off, it began to feel okay.
And I swam. I swam underwater, and I found that I could now hold my breath comfortably much longer than before. I sunk into the water, and into the perfect silence, and I basked in the calm.
I don’t know exactly why what’s happening is happening, or what’s going to come next. All I know is that being underwater feels like a place where I belong.
So you understand why I have to go back again tomorrow. Why I have to see exactly what the extent of my new abilities is.
Sweet dreams, Diary.
7.
Hey sis,
So, good news: I saw Snowy again today, and she was swimming, happily. Snowy has literally grown fins. I didn’t drown her after all! In fact, I think I made a positive impact on this place.
There are still a lot of things I don’t understand about this area, and there are still some things I have to do over the next couple of weeks, but… I think this will be my last letter before I leave this place.
And I’m leaving only to come get you guys and bring you back here with me. I know I’ve said this before, but I really think this is a good place for us all to live. And it’s almost ready, and I cannot tell you how happy I am that soon, I will be reunited with everyone. It’s been very weird being alone, and not always pleasant.
But it’s been worth it if it will keep everyone safe.
Anyways, I’ll be seeing you soon. I hope you like fish.
Like I said, I’ve still got some work to do here before I can come get everybody. I’m only partway through the designs for a fish-catching device, and I may decide to leave the fish to Snowy if I can’t get a working plan soon.
So what I should really say is, hope you don’t like fish.
See you soon,
Your brother,
Marshall.
8.
Dear Diary,
I think I’m going to like living with fins. I mean, it won’t always be as fun and cool and exciting as it seems right now, but once the initial euphoria’s worn off, swimming still feels like where I belong.
It’s funny, going from almost drowning to being able to swim better than ever. It’s not so scary now as it used to be. I said before that being underwater felt cold, like the life had drained out of me and death was replacing it. But now it just makes me feel alive.
There is a reason that I am where I am, far away from other wolves, and from the place that I used to call home. Someday, maybe I can write down the things that brought me here. I can’t do it right now, because it still feels like I’m drowning in those memories.
That’s okay, though. I’ll keep learning how to swim.
This whole area looks different to how it does when I got here. But it looks better, somehow, like the whole world changed for me; growing me a home out of a barren wasteland. I still don’t trust the mysterious creature who showed up at about the time all this started, but I suspect that it’s not setting up traps for me to fall into.
Sweet dreams, Diary.
I cut a lot of the plotline out when I converted my story into a video, due to a lack of time, and the fact that my math monster fell apart. The end product, which focussed mostly on the adaptation of my protagonist, and less on the cause behind the environmental changes, looks like this:
So, about two months ago, as part of our unit on Fantasy, we took a trip to Florida, and while there, we visited Walt Disney World.
The purpose of going to Disney World was to help us get footage and interviews for a project we were doing about how Disney’s imagineers used rides and shows to bring fantasy to life. Each of us chose a specific ride, and made a video about how that ride made fantasy “real”.
I chose to do my project on the Haunted Mansion; I enjoyed the dark and creepy feel of it, and the fact that it was created not based on a movie or show, but rather as its own little word, meant that it was perfect for the project I was working on.
One of the issues I didn’t think about when I chose the Haunted Mansion as a ride was how difficult filming in the dark would be. A lot of my footage ended up being unusable, so most of the footage in my video of the actual ride is footage I pulled from YouTube videos.
I went through a few different drafts of my video, mostly to add more information or replace visuals in order to make them more effective. However, the actual content video stayed pretty consistent throughout all the drafts, since it mostly focussed on the requirements I’d had from the beginning: give some background information on the ride, explain how the ride makes fantasy “real”, get some interviews with other Disney World attendees or with cast members.
My final video ended up looking like this:
The main things that I feel I could have improved about my video are that I wish more of my own footage had worked out, and that I wish I could have gotten more information on how the mechanics of the ride worked. Overall, however, I think the video answered the question and showcased the ride pretty well, so I’m happy with how it ended up.
Toodles!
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