Category Archives: School

Making Fantasy Real

Posted on by under Humanities, School

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!

You Are What You Eat: A Blog Post From a Salty Potato

Posted on by under Fun Stuff, Humanities, School

So, we’ve just started our health and career unit. This means we’ll be learning about a few different subcategories of health and career, one of which includes healthy eating.

Now, healthy eating isn’t exactly a new topic of discussion for health and career– I remember being taught the food pyramid year after year in elementary school, along with having to categorize foods into the four food groups, and being told that popcorn is not generally considered a vegetable. This year, however, we did an assignment that I haven’t done in health and career, or any class, before: we had to make self-portraits out of food.

Well, we had to digitally edit self portraits out of pictures of food, but close enough.

Here’s what my portrait looks like:

Now, when I found out about this assignment, I initially wanted to create a self portrait entirely out of potatoes. Potatoes are my favourite food, and can be prepared in a variety of ways, plus they come in the shades I would need for my skin, lips, eyes and hair, so they seemed like a good choice for the project. However, I decided that there were some other foods that should be included in a food-self-portrait of me, so I scrapped the all-spuds idea and got to work.

I chose coffee beans for my hair and eyebrows, because they’re about the right colour, and because I owe coffee most of my ability to be a functional human being and not a total zombie. I also decided that my hair and eyebrows would be a good thing to make out of coffee because they make up a large portion of the picture, and I drink coffee every day.

I made my skin out of mashed potatoes, because I felt I should still honour my potato idea, and made my lips out of ketchup chips for the same reason.

My shirt I decided to make from Caesar salad, because I really like Caesar salad, and because I felt I should add in some kind of healthy food.

That covers most of the major parts of the portrait, but I also included milk (eyes), cookies (irises), black licorice (eyelashes) and blackberries (overalls/lining on shirt). Beyond being foods that I enjoy, most of these foods are things that I eat fairly regularly, and can remember having since childhood.

While I had some foods that I wish I could have worked into the portrait– pizza, avocados and mangos, to name a few –I thought it turned out pretty well and only mildly hideous.

Well, toodles!

DNA Extraction/Model Creation

Posted on by under Math & Science, School

So, we’ve been learning about DNA. In order to learn about this, we’ve done two things: a lab experiment, and a model.

For the lab experiment, we extracted strawberry DNA using salt, alcohol and soap. We crushed the strawberries in order to break down the cell walls, and let the DNA be released. We then mixed the strawberries with the other substances in test tubes. The DNA came out in rather slimy strings. It looked a little bit gross, but it was very interesting to see the DNA once it was extracted.

For the model, we each created a “DNA strand” with a partner. The DNA strands were madeout of pipe cleaners, beads, Pom-poms, and macaroni. We used different supplies to show different kinds of base pairs, five pairs in all. I used pom-poms to represent C-G pairs, and beads and macaroni to represent A-T pairs.

Toodles!

This Team Is Choice

Posted on by under Destination Imagination, School

So, you may remember me mentioning Destination Imagination ?

If you don’t remember me mentioning Destination Imagination, you can go check out my previous blog post about it or even my post recounting my first time doing DI.

On the off chance that you now still have no idea what Destination Imagination is, let me recap:

Destination Imagination is essentially a series of tournaments in which teams, representing schools from elementary to university levels, have to compete in various challenges. Each team has a main challenge, which they get to select from a list of options, and an “instant challenge”, which is given to them on the day of the tournament. The main challenge is generally something that takes a lot of preparation and development of ideas over time, while the instant challenge is generally something that requires quick thinking, teamwork and logic.

The main challenge that my team (Kate, Angela, Robbie, Claire and myself) did actually required both. Our challenge was this: present three skits, with three minutes to prepare and present each one, all based on the same prompt but with a different genre and stock character each time. To assist us in our skits, we were allowed to bring a 13″ x 13″ x 13″ box of props. We had some restrictions with the props, such as not being allowed to bring anything that would ruin the stage if it got knocked over, but for the most part we could bring whatever we thought would be helpful.

We also had to include two “team choice elements”: things that represented our collective interests as a group. These elements had to be well-incorporated into our presentations, while still clearly accentuated.

When I wrote my last blog post about DI, we had just finished the regional tournament, and gotten first place due to being the only team in our category and age group. We were feeling pretty good about the performance we had given, but there were some things we wanted to improve on.

The first thing we wanted to improve upon was one of our team choice elements. The idea for this team choice element was to handcraft one of our props out of (homemade play dough). However, the prop we made for regionals didn’t hold together very well.

So, we decided to try again. This time, however, instead of making a specific prop, we would just make some play dough and keep it mold-able for the tournament so that we could make whatever prop we needed on the spot. Besides the interests that we had initially wanted to represent– spacial-visual skills, science and art –we now also had to utilize the same creativity and quick thinking that we were already using to improvise our skits.

The second thing we wanted to improve upon was our understanding of the stock characters and genres that we could potentially be given for our skits. For the provincial tournament, we had a different set of potential stock characters than the ones we had for regionals. We used the preparation time we had between tournaments to practice improv skits with these characters, and changing our box of props to suit the characters we were now using.

Eventually, the day of provincials arrived, and we performed our three skits. They all went fairly well, but I think the first one (prompt: the stock character is working in a car dealership, stock character: royal person, genre: parody) went best. I had some technical issues trying to download the videos of our skits, so I can’t include them here until further notice, but watching them back I felt that this was the skit where we had the most energy and confidence. This probably stemmed partly from the fact that we chose to parody Keeping Up With the Kardashians, seeing as we had been including Kim Kardashian in our skits from pretty much the very beginning of this project.

If I have to do DI again next year, I think I’ll probably do improv again, as I enjoyed it more than I enjoyed DI last year. I also feel like I’ve learned a lot about how to improvise skits during this project, so it would be interesting to do again with some preexisting improv ability.

Toodles!

(Insert Awesome Pun About Tables Here)

Posted on by under About Me, Humanities, School

So, recently we each had to do an assignment where we wrote about five people who we looked up to as role models– the five people we would want at the table at a business meeting, so to speak.

This assignment also included making a creative visual including everyone at your table, as well as yourself. I chose to have an art gallery wall with pictures of everyone at my table (and, of course, me.)

This was what I wrote about the people I chose:

One fictional role model that I don’t think about as much anymore but still consider just as great a character is Jo March from Little Women. At the time that I first read Little Women, writing was one of my favourite things to do. Jo writing stories, and later on getting them published, and getting recognition for them, always made me want to go work on a story more, and it was nice to connect to the character through that. Jo is also a very independent character, although she is shown to care a lot about her family and friends. She is always depicted as doing whatever she wants, and usually not needing much help. However, she is a very helpful character, doing whatever she can to help her family, and doing chores and work without complaining. In the part of the book where Beth is sick, Jo spends most of her time taking care of her and trying to make her happy and comfortable. The coexistence of Jo’s independent and rebellious nature and her helpfulness and kindness towards others are what makes her a good character, and a good role model.

While I have a lot of people that I look up to for traits they exhibit, there are some people that I look up to more for the things they have created and the style, creativity or dedication that clearly went into those things. One such person is Tim Burton. While I don’t know much about Tim Burton as a person, I have admired the movies that he has produced and directed for years. While there are a lot of factors that go into making a movie, and many, many people involved in making one, Tim Burton’s influence on any movie he had a hand in is clear. The unique characteristic that Burton brings to his movies has come to be known as “being Burtonesque”. Something Burtonesque is usually imbued with an interesting mix of childishness and macabre, a balance that Burton seems to have perfected over the years. While any given Tim Burton movie is likely to have dark elements, a lot of them are children’s movies, and they make sense as children’s movies; they aren’t scary or disturbing, but they take things that should be scary and disturbing and add humour. Tim Burton has also created some of the original characters or ideas in his movies, both of which take a lot of creativity to create.

One of my favourite series is Harry Potter, and one of my favourite characters from said series is Hermione Granger. Throughout all the books, her values remained basically the same: family. Friends. Equality. Intelligence. All admirable things to care about, and things that she stood up for many, many times throughout the series, no matter how many people tried to shut her down. Hermione has influenced and inspired a lot of people, and for good reason; she’s an awesome character and an excellent role model. As is normal for a teenager, or any given person, Hermione dealt with some insecurity in the books. However, she always stood up for herself and what she believed, and she was always eager to learn new things in and about the world around her. Hermione also proves to be very observant throughout the books. She tends to be the character most attuned to others’ emotions and plans, and to small details that ended up helping in various situations. An example of this is in the first book, when Hermione remembers who Nicholas Flamel is due to his name having been mentioned in a book she’s reading at the time.

I spend a lot of time watching YouTube, and although I like watching various channels, my favourite YouTuber is a vlogger called Shannon Taylor (HeyThereImShannon). Her videos showcase a sense of self-confidence that I wish I could have myself, and always encourage people to be and do whatever they want. At the time that I began watching her channel, it seemed to be (apart from the short vlog-style videos that she still does now) mostly hair tutorials; perhaps a strange choice of focus for a YouTuber with alopecia, something she has always been open about, but has accepted and worked through enough that her hair has now become something she is known for. Although the content on her channel has recently focussed more on vlogging, and on the music she’s released, the message has remained: be yourself.

I’ve had various role models throughout my life, but the person I’ve always considered my biggest role model is my sister Charlotte. In probably every aspect of my life, from school to fashion to kindness and just being a good person, I look up to Charlotte as the standard that I want to meet. Seeing my sister exhibit traits like leadership, kindness and a sense of humour has made me want to do the same. Seeing her work hard on schoolwork— and watching her bring home good grades because of it —is one of the reasons that I’ve always wanted to show the same dedication and intelligence. Even in small things, like her makeup and fashion sense, Charlotte is the person I aspire to be more like. However, the thing I admire most about my sister is her creativity, and the creative talents that she’s developed because of it. Charlotte is an excellent writer, artist, singer and pianist– all things that I know very well don’t come without work and resilience. As a kid, I remember looking at Charlotte’s accomplishments and thinking they seemed unreachable, or impossibly good, but as the years went on, they inspired me to reach my own accomplishments, and develop my own interests in a lot of the same things as my sister. She isn’t perfect, but Charlotte has always and will always inspire me in many areas of my life, and I will always look up to her as my role model.

While I do look up to all the people I chose as role models to varying degrees, I found while I was choosing people that I was often inspired less by people themselves and more by things that they had created; songs, art, stories, videos. I didn’t want my entire list to be filled with people who I only looked up to for their work, but I wanted to represent this idea that I often looked to things people had created as inspiration, and this is the main reason I included Tim Burton; I don’t know much about Tim Burton as a person, but I am a big fan of his work, and the same is true of a lot of different people who are considered to be role models. There’s a difference between being inspired by or respecting something and being inspired by or respecting someone, so in the case of Tim Burton, and a number of people I did not add to the list, I look up not to them but to the worlds that they have created.

Toodles.

What Canada Means To Me

Posted on by under Humanities, School

So recently, each person in my class was asked to make a video explaining what Canada means to them. These videos would then be entered in a competition featuring similar videos, as part of a celebration of Canada’s upcoming 150th birthday.

Here’s the video I created:

https://www.blog44.ca/willab/files/2017/03/IMG_8845-2ia8lup.mov

I had some difficulty figuring out what I wanted to say in my video, because while I love Canada, it’s not something I spend a lot of time putting into words. Canada to me is, as I said in the video, home, and I mean that as sort of a feeling; that sense of looking around you and knowing that you are lucky and safe and happy and that you are somewhere that you belong.

After having difficulties trying to script a video, I took a bunch of drafts, which were all me rambling, and all pretty terrible, but from them I was able to put together an idea of what I wanted to say: Canada is a place of safety, my home, and a place with new experiences yet to be discovered. While I think my video could have been better, I think I got my point across fairly clearly.

Toodles.

🎶We Did the Math (We Did the Monster Math)🎶

Posted on by under Math & Science, School

As you may have guessed from the title, this is another post about math.

But this time, there’s monsters.

*cue Bobby Pickett*

So, we’ve been learning about calculating the volume and surface area of composite solids. As part of this unit, we’ve each built a “monster” Out of basic shapes, which we then have to calculate the volume and surface area of.

For instance, my monster, Mr. Marshmallows, has a volume of 2.35525 inches(5.982335 centimetres) cubed, and a surface area of 17.7575 inches (45.10405 centimetres) squared.

Now, creating a monster for the sole purpose of calculating its volume and surface area may seem like a strange project (not to mention one that I would design). There’s a good reason for that– it’s actually part of a bigger crosscurricular project that will include biomes/ecology (science), character development and story writing (English), sewing (humanities? impromptu textiles? Is sewing just a part of PLP?), videomaking (humanities/maker time), and, more likely than not, a lot of rejected storyboards (I direct you once again to the quilt project).

You can expect a follow up post to this one sometime soon detailing the adventures of Mr. Marshmallows (versus some as yet unknown “hero”).

Until then–

Toodles!

Yet Another Student Led Conference

Posted on by under About Me, Humanities, mPols & tPols, School

So, it’s time for another student led conference, and as with SLCs one and two, that means an accompanying blog post.

There are a few pieces of work I want to talk about in my SLC; the first is my Alice Essay, a piece of work which I’m proud of. I’ve always enjoyed essay-writing (relative to other schoolwork), and I’ve written analytical essays before, but never with the criteria of writing objectively. While the essay was, for the most part, explaining an interpretation of Carroll’s work, having to present my opinions almost as facts was a bit of a challenge. I’m usually inclined to saying things like “I think” or “I find” or “I like” when writing, and while it may seem like a small thing, I found it difficult to write objectively. However, I think I overcame that difficulty and was able to write a good essay anyway.

The next thing I want to talk about is something I didn’t feel I did quite as well at, but was able to learn from and have improved on: Destination Imagination. It’s been over a year since we did DI for the first time, and although the challenge I did last year was very different to the one I did (and am still doing) this year, there are still some things that I learned from my first experience with DI that I was able to apply to my second. One of the things I thought was a major issue with my group’s presentation at the first DI tournament was that we didn’t manage our time well while we were preparing for the tournament. During my group’s preparation for the second DI tournament, our time management still wasn’t perfect, but it was an improvement over the year before. Another thing that I did with DI this year that I didn’t do as well last year is listening to and working with my group. While the fact that I have a different group is definitely a contributing factor to my improved teamwork, I did make more of an effort to work well with my group this year because I knew that last year the difficulties my group had working together took a toll on our work.

The last project I want to mention is one we’re still working on: our Disney videos, which use the example of a Disney World ride to show how people are drawn to imaginary worlds. During the research process of this project, we actually went to Disney World, and I had to do something I was very nervous about doing: interview complete strangers.

Now, I’m not bad with people; I’m a little awkward, but I can basically have a polite conversation with someone I don’t know very well. The thing that was a problem was actually going up to people and asking them if I could interview them. I find it very intimidating starting conversations with people I don’t know very well, and I actually asked my friend Ruby to go up to the first person I interviewed for me so that I could be a little more confident. Eventually, however, I started going up to people myself, and although I wasn’t super comfortable, it was a step towards a goal I set for myself earlier this year: being able to talk to people as sources of information for projects. This is something I’ve always found fairly difficult, and conquering my fear and actually doing it required me to have a growth mindset, believing that I could do it if I tried.

That brings me to the next thing I want to talk about: a goal I have for the rest of the year. I want to believe in myself more and try and actually do the things that I’d usually avoid. For instance, admitting when I need help on something and then actually going and getting it. It will take some time and effort, but I think I can eventually get there.

Toodles.

The Flight Trip to Florida

Posted on by under Field Studies, Humanities, School

So, back at the beginning of the month we (my class) took a trip to Florida. The purpose of this trip was mainly to go to Walt Disney World, but also included visits to NASA, a wildlife reserve, and a surfing school.

There was some educational merit in the form of getting footage, interviews and real life experience for a project that I’ll be covering in a separate blog post when it’s finished. In this blog post, however, I want to discuss the trip itself.

The first day was a travel day, and consisted of getting up at about 2:30 AM and taking a flight to Florida. (Actually two flights, as we took a connecting one to Seattle.) Not much notable happened, although I did eat a lot of apple cinnamon Cheerios.

The second day we went to magic kingdom, which was fun but very busy and honestly kind of overwhelming.

I did get to meet Winnie the Pooh, so ultimately the day was a success.

The third day was universal, and mainly consisted of me being a total Harry Potter nerd (but you knew that already ), and getting completely soaked on the Jurassic Park. I also got stuck on the wrong side of a parade about five minutes before having to meet up with the class, which would have been a very upsetting and panicky situation had I not been listening to Fix Youthe entire time, which kept me pretty calm.

The fourth day was my favourite, as it involved a very calm, very pretty wildlife retreat, and an alligator-watching tour.

The fifth day included a surfing lesson, which was really fun, and a trip to NASA, which was also really cool. The following day was also NASA-focused; we spent the day at the Kennedy Visitor’s Center, where we got to learn a little bit more about space and astronauts, and got to go to a lunch where an astronaut was guest speaking.

The remaining days were all spent at various Disney parks: EPCOT, Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Disney Springs. My favourite was probably Hollywood studios, as I enjoyed the various rides and experiences there, as well as the Star Wars themed “Dessert Party” we attended, where we got to meet Chewbacca and Kylo Ren.

All in all, as much as it had its ups and downs, it was an enjoyable trip.

Toodles.

Oh, A Blog Post Title? I’ll Improvise Something…

Posted on by under Destination Imagination, Humanities, School

So, about a year ago, I wrote this post about Destination Imagination. Destination Imagination is essentially an organization that presents groups of students from different schools around the world with “challenges” of some kind– I.e. writing a skit or creating a transportation device –with a lot of specific rules and instructions.

The challenge I decided to do this year was the improvisational challenge: create three skits, with three minutes to prep and present each, all based around the same prompt but with a different genre and including a different stock character each time.

Because it was improv, we wouldn’t get assigned our prompt, genre and character until right before our three minutes began. However, we were given a list of all the possible characters, which we divided up between the five of us, and we were asked to choose fifteen genres off of a list (which I was really glad we were allowed to narrow down, as I was not confident in our ability to improv a kabuki skit).

What we were allowed to choose ahead of time was our box of props (officially called a “box o stuff”). We were required to bring a 13″ x 13″ x 13″ box containing all of our props, including any accessories we wanted to involve in the skits. Our box of props included a wig, some faks glasses, various fake weapons, some plastic food, a foam microphone, fake flowers, a flute, and a melted fake gem, among other things.

But let me talk specifically about those last two. As part of our challenge, we had to create two “team choice elements”: things that reflected our interests and abilities as a group. Our first team choice element consisted of musical cues played on a flute, representing my group’s interest in music, and specifically in learning to play musical instruments. Our second tesm choice element was a little more ambiguous; what was intended to be a fake diamond made out of a playdough-like substance (representing our creativity and tendency towards visual or special learning) ended up melting and becoming a miscellaneous prop that we had to learn to incorporate into different situations and use as different things. Unfortunately, we didn’t really do much to make this team choice element stand out, and I’m honestly not sure it was really clear what it was supposed to be.

Our second team choice element probably falls under the category of Stuff We Have to Improve For Provincials.

That’s right. We’re going to the second round of competition of Destination Imagination. Which makes sense, seeing as during regionals we came in first place in our age group and category.

Tag yourself, I’m the excited child wearing muggle clothes.

…We were the only team in our age group and category, so we came in first place by default, but that’s just a technicality.

Anyway, so we’re going to provincials. Look out for that blog post as a follow up sometime soon. Until then, however…

Toodles.

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