Say Cheese!

Okay, I’m sorry for all the disappointments that this post isn’t a reflection. But I guess this would sound more lengthy and boring for all you boredom readers out there So, here I am. And just for the interesting-ness of it, I’ll leave the intro to be this boring.

During math, we’re learning probability– or we’re starting to– in math class. This, I find is an interesting topic, and as a start, like my anteater post, I would like to describe it with extreme detail (or maybe I, myself, might get bored of writing, and keep it short– I don’t know, it kinda depends). But I think I’m gonna go antique style and write out what I’m supposed to do, and follow what it tells me to do as follows :3

a) Probability is how often some outcome can come out when you are given a situation. For example:

Last year, during a poem unit in English, I found this poem about plums, which I thought would be valid to use in this case.

This is just to say

by. William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

This poem is a person confessing (sarcastically) about the fact that he has eaten the plums in the icebox. So lets say that Bob, after finding this smug poem left in the icebox instead of the plum, decides to calculate how often this would take place, and make a plan to not have his plums stolen by William anymore. Then, perhaps what Bob really wants to know is the probability of his plum in icebox being stolen. THIS is when probability comes into the picture

b) Probability is shown in a form as it is shown below:

So lets say that Bob wants to calculate this, but he DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO! oops…..

(the total of possibilities there are to achieve a certain product = No. of times is William going to eat Bob’s plum secretly)

(all the possible things that can happen in this situation = No. of Bob going to keep his plum in the icebox)

This fraction can be shown in the fraction form itself or it can be changed to a percentage which is done by plugging in the numbers to the equation and you consider the second decimal place as the digits place of your percentage. For example, lets say that when you plug in numbers for the words in the parenthesis in the equation above, it becomes 1/2 . Then, if you change this to a decimal (by calculating it), it becomes 0.50. If you consider the fact that the digits is in the second decimal place, it becomes 50%. Voila! Easy as that!

c) There is not much that I believe I want to know, but I think I want to know the different equations to find different possibilities that something can happen faster. For example, Bob maybe doesn’t need to count the number of times William takes his plum, but maybe there is another way to know the probability quicker than putting a plum in the icebox everyday.

d) I believe that probability might come in handy in times where I need to find out how many times something would happen, or to show in ratio relationship, the number of red balls to blue balls or boys to girls in the class. I don’t believe there would be any other place that it would come in handy, though I think that it would come in useful in the future when we learn statistics in math class. (Soon, I hope?)

Thank you all for reading my post about probability.

Here is the link to my 50′s and 60′s rock music analysis:

https://docs.google.com/a/yis.ac.jp/document/d/1t2KEtKo-rR1z3z2CeX5EaLuDKd7phJJablgdqgBtok4/edit

The two songs that I compared was “I will” by the Beatles and “Sugar Man” by Sixto Rodriguez. These two songs were from the late 60s, and there are various similarities and differences between these songs.(Which can be read in the analysis document linked above)

Thank you

Task:

1. My best speech was….. because….
2. I should improve on…. because….
Choose another student’s video which appealed to you, embed it also and answer this question focussing on the key aspect that was appealing:
3. Another speech which was captivating was…. because….

—————————————————————————————————————————————————–

My best speech was my persuasive speech because I believe I was able to practice for it. There were two speeches that we were told to give. One was persuasive, and one was impromptu. And since the impromptu one was supposed to be unprepared, I believe I was able to do better in many different ways with the persuasive speech.

Firstly, during my persuasive speech, I was able to speech much more clearly with a better content and knowledgable sentences. This was probably because I was able to know more about the topic that I chose for the persuasive speech than the one that I needed to know for my impromptu. Probably, the content part was due to the lack of research I had for the impromptu speech.

Secondly, I believe, that through practice and the existence of palmcards, I was able to be more confident with what I was going to say since I knew it quite well.

Thirdly, I think I did well when I interacted with the audience when I asked: “How many hours do you think the world uses playing video games?” I believe this helped me relax along with “hooking” the audience in.

Thus, the only real thing that made all these differences was PRACTICE, which I’m sure all of you will agree.

However, I believe I would need to improve a lot of things from this speech as well. Firstly, there were a few grammatical errors in my speech along with a few mispronunciations. I think I could eradicate this by practicing more thoroughly and not being pressured by the existence of the camera. I also think I should improve the focus of the camera. I believe I had focused more on making eye contact with the people in the audience than the camera, so it seems as if I’m avoiding to meet eyes with the camera. So, I do think I need an improvement in this sense. I believe I was rocking on my feet extraordinarily lot. (It was probably because I was pressured, but I think I should change this since it takes away the audiences’ attention on my words and make them focus more on my movements.

Here is my speech:

8C Drama: Persuasive Speeches from YIS Arts on Vimeo.

There were 2 other speechs which I thought was captivating:

1. Katie’s Speech

8C Drama: Persuasive Speeches from YIS Arts on Vimeo.

So here is Katie’s speech, and there were a few reasons why I found it captivating. First of all, I like it how she told a story in the beginning which “hooks” the audience. I also think that she made the speech as if she was telling her personal story. (relaxed and with personal feelings) I think that it was also well paced as well. Some points that I believe I can learn from this speech is the relaxed looks and the emotions that comes to meet the audience when she speaks about her topic.

2. Marshall’s Speech

8C Drama: Persuasive Speeches from YIS Arts on Vimeo.

So here is Marshall’s speech, and I believe I found this speech captivating by the power in his voice when he speaks about his topic and the different word techniques he uses in his speech. For example, in the beginning, he uses rhetorical questions in the beginning to captivate or “hook” the audience. I also think that he seemed confident about what he spoke about. Some things I believe can be learned through Marshall’s speech is the power he puts in his voice through emphasis on words.

Thank you for reading my reflection.

SO I am here again to write another reflection for school since I have noticed after 3 years of blog writing, that blogs are meant for reflections, where teachers can read what you feel through a series of 1s and 0s. I am not against this in any way, so I’m here with another reflection for art.

During art these days, we worked on a project that lasted 7 weeks of drawing a cartoon character. The unit started out as us being asked to create a character for Pixar’s new movie. This involved us having assigned a font from the default fonts to draw a character of. There was a list of them, and I was assigned Braggadocio.

According to my research put into action during weeks 1 and 2, I discovered that braggadocio means: “braggart” or “empty boasting”. So at first, I thought of drawing a man reclined in a chair looking proud like this:

However, I decided that this looked too business man like, so I gave up on

the idea and started to focus on the –docio part of the font.

Later on, probably sometime in the beginning of week 3, I decided that the –docio sounded Italian, and focused on what jobs a stereotypical Italian has. I had different ideas: actor, baker, or a chef. Since there were so many different types of actors, I stopped at the idea of chef. I also focused on what would make someone proud. I found out that this could be so many different things, however, since I focused on chef, I thought that chefs would be proud when they achieve awards for making the best food, and this would be indicated through the existence of trophies and medals.

The first version of my character wasn’t the best one, however, I believe through the process of evolution from the first version, I ended up with my final one. (Therefore, I think that my first version is the most important after my final product.) My first version started out by me fooling around and drawing an extraordinarily fat man. His arms were chubby in the first drawing, but I decided that I didn’t like it fat, and changed it thinner. Thus, leading to the man looking like a potato with toothpicks.

Do you see the resemblance?

However, after a few other drawings, I thought that he didn’t look so proud, but more happy. So, I thought that I would have the man longer, but not skinnier. (leaving me with no choice but having to extend the head) I also thought that by the use of having a smaller, longer head, it would look as if he was little thinking, and might look boastful.

I ended up with this after a series of trying different shapes for the head:

Series of tries (that you probably wouldn’t be able to see unless you zoom in)

Final decision (You can probably see without zooming in)

Later on, I came up with the idea of the pizza flat on his hand, and his eyes blank. There were two different reasons to this, since if the pizza is too thick, more attention is attracted to the pizza, and his blank eyes were to indicate blindness in his fame. However, after a series of drawing, I decided that I should have dollar signs in his eyes looked the best. I tried out hearts, dollar signs and others, but I thought that dollar signs indicated the craving of monetary benefit. (And most of these cravings came from already existing values of one.)

So later, when I got to coloring my character, I got to a point where I had finished making the backgrounds with colors, and I decided that “peach” didn’t match my character well, leading to me choosing it to be either green or red. After moments of rethinking, I thought that red would make the man look like he’s blushing, and blushing wouldn’t make someone look proud. So I chose to make the man green. (Which I keep thinking that I shouldn’t have.)

Here is my final piece

After looking at the final picture a few times, found some strengths and weaknesses in my picture.

Strengths

1. I believe I was able to portray the man in a way that he looks boastful and self-obsessed by the use of facial expressions and poses

2. I believe I was also able to use matching colors (green-purple-yellow)

Weaknesses

1. I think I could improve the shape of his legs so that it matches the person in a better way. (since he looks out of proportion– leading to looking weird ㅠㅜ Also, the man’s left leg is placed infront of it, making it look out of balance, but still standing) I think I can improve this by editing the position of the line between the legs.

2. I think I was in a hurry with the hat and making it look more like a mickey mouse fist than a baker’s hat. (So I think I could improve this by having a bun shaped hat or one of a smilar shape but looks more like a head.

After having to finish this unit, I learned that plans could change anytime, and it was best to have this changes to come to you more than persist in proceeding one type. However, I thought that a firm plan in the beginning so that you know which way your going, would always help since with the use of the plan in the beginning, I think it helped me get to the current form of character “Braggadocio” that I have.

In my opinion, I think that stereotypes helped me draw my own character since I the mustache in my picture was an indication of Italian, and I also tried to think of stereotypical braggarts such as this man:

They had something in common with their dull eyes and eyebrows.

Even though stereotypes might be misconceptions of people, and might be racist or mean to one, I believe that stereotypes help develop one to create something that shows others what they intended.

I believe this unit was a fun one, however, if I were to redo this unit, I would like to try out different things with the legs, or perhaps with another font that might help develop my skills for drawing a cartoon character.

Thank you

Hi I’m back with another boring title and reflection. But then let me tell you this before you go– “*groan* it’s a boring reflection again. Eh, I’m not bothered to read it.” look. This is a very controversial topic introduced here. (So controversial that I will need to write after a minute to calm my mind.)

Hi I’m back from the minute of comprehension.

So here’s what I’m trying to get at. This post, I promise will not be a boring reflection on a random unit that we finished– no! But it is going to be an answering in personal opinion post, which, if you enjoy, more can be found here. Okay, so I’ll get back to what I need to talk about.

DOES COPYRIGHT HINDER OR CULTIVATE CREATIVITY? 

I personally believe that copyright hinders creativity at its current stage, and I’d like to explain why in the following paragraphs of this post.

Copyright started out as a right to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing it for a limit of time. However, I’d like to propose a question before I get on with what copyright is doing to our society now: Is this copyright? Does current copyright laws used to promote the progress of science and useful arts, or for the greater monetary benefit of the creator?

I believe the latter. You, the reader might believe otherwise, however, I believe that people are power and profit craving organisms. And this craving leads to this problem where one’s current benefits are of the primary benefit, and the greater improvement of our humanity is put back. People’s cravings will never end, and at its current point, the copyright law, which, at its origins lasted for 28 years to being of the life time of the creator + 75 years. Which I personally believe is absurd.

Some of you may argue that copyright sets boundaries for one to be creative, since what copyright does is keep people from using the same ideas as others as their own since for the improvement of our society we’ve got to create different ideas. (perhaps original, or maybe off of others’ ideas) However, I believe the current copyright law is preposterously long. Lets say that the creator was 34 when he or she decided to create a product which was new and interesting. When taken under consideration that one’s life span is for 87 years. That would mean that the product would be under protection of copyright for 128 years. (This is, when a person was born the exact moment this invention was put under copyright, would be dead, and would have a great great grandchild by this time) <And this, my gentle readers, is not a pleasant picture.>

Perhaps copyright law does help the world in different ways. Perhaps it is necessary for a creator to live off of their material for a long time. However, let me remind you of the definition of creativity.

Creativity: (noun) The state or quality of having the quality or power of evolving from one’s own thought or imagination.

–And copyright definitely does not let one expand their own thoughts or imagination from scratch.

I’d like to give you statistics on the effect of several brains against a single brain. Firstly, there was an experiment where students were told to try and create a tower of cups and straws of the highest height possible. Every student was given different amounts of straws and cups. Some were given more tape, and some were given more strings. All of the students had created the highest tower possible, but later, this experiment was repeated with the same amount of straws and cups given previously to each student, but was told to create the highest tower possible as a group. And this, led for the students to create the tallest tower possible.

So what is this suggesting?

Well, lets say the amount of cups, straws, tape, and string were the amount of background knowledge to create a product. Perhaps one has got more “supplies” than others. But lets think. When students collaborated to create a large tower, they had created the largest one possible. — Isn’t that what we want? Does humanity want to be brought to the apex or do they want many medium sized towers?

Mankind has always prefers to be ducks which can walk, fly, and swim a little, than eagles which fly the sky properly. This is one of the results of our nature. People prefer to stick out and earn the maximum benefit they could personally for themselves. When mankind can advance in a certain topic where they could add onto others’ ideas and become eagles which soar the skies properly, their intensions of personally sticking out lead to the humanity becoming ducks, which cannot do anything perfectly.

For humanities improvement and for our creativity, I’m not saying that we should rid of copyright laws.– NO! But what I’m saying it that a better balance and time period for copyright would lead to our advancement. Not only of a single human being.

Thank you

“Mankind has always prefers to be ducks which can walk, fly, and swim a little, than eagles which fly the sky properly.”

During the past few weeks in Drama, we focused on how to persuade someone in a professional manner, and we focused on making persuasive speeches. So as a brief project, we were to make a speech about a minute long of a topic we were allowed to think about for 30 seconds. This project was to test us on our skills to persuade without having to prepare for it and to get better at testifying, proposing and state what one thinks about a certain topic.

My topic was coffee. This was a tough one since I seriously had nothing to state about coffee since I don’t drink coffee, however, I believe I did a satisfactory job in getting my point across by projecting my voice. I also think I was able to use a hook where I reminded my audience by stating my topic before starting another point on my topic. I believe I could have done better in organizing my ideas in my brain before saying them and looking more relaxed. I believe that I could improve the aforementioned concepts by practicing to be able to analyse my thoughts within my head in a short period of time, and perhaps, also by having to be able to prepare for the speech before I get up there to make one. I think that I could have reduced some pauses in the middle of my sentences, which weren’t meant to be there, by placing the pauses where it needs to be to be able to organize the thoughts within my head.

Overall, I think I did a slightly disappointing job in my impromptu speech and I am thinking on improving the following points:

1. No awkward pauses
2. No awkward movements (no unnecessary ones either)
3. Looking confident
4. Analyzing my thoughts before speaking them aloud
5. Speak relaxedly (?)

You can view my impromptu speech below.

8C Drama: Impromptu Speeches from YIS Arts on Vimeo.

Thank you –

P.S.  I’m sorry for the not interesting writing and the not interesting title…

So, I am back with a more interesting title though it’s really got nothing to do with classic music, but that’d do. (for now) I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to post this on my blog, but I don’t like things kept risky, so I’ll have it posted. This one, since I don’t have much time now, is going to be a short one, and there will be lots and lots of unnecessary information, but… just bear with me. (Unless you skip the whole chunk of information of the reflection, and just look at the disco aardvark and think how your life seems really lame– since you don’t have a better way to spend your time than to stare at a disco aardvark. *Sorry if I offended you, readers*)

Music Reflection: Falling Slowly Presentation

So, during vocal class, we learned about classical music and about its popularity, and for my song, I chose Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. This song, from the movie, “Once”, is a song sung by two lovers at an instrument store, where Glen plays the guitar while Marketa plays the piano. I chose this music not because I watched this movie and not the lyrics but the warmth that is given through the use of two different instruments and the melody created by the two. The song itself is very famous and was awarded with the academy award for the best original song. The song itself, being very well known was covered by different artists and people out there who have an access to YouTube and likes to make covers personally. This song itself is meant to be a song sung by two lovers, meaning a male vocal as the main melody with the female vocal’s harmony. I guess it was difficult for me to work out to sing the male part, however, I thought it was a good song, and it was worth it. Even though it might be that Glen’s voice matched Marketa’s voice better, I think it was a good try, having a good song at hand in the first place. As from the written assessment we had to turn in about the comparison, I challenged myself to try and compare the song to a classic song by Mozart, which I thought would be vaguely similar turned out to be better than expected, and there were more things in common than expected– and I believe that a challenge is always a good thing even though you might mess up. I think that my vocals were stable throughout the music expect for a voice crack in the beginning which turned out not to be that bad. Also, I think I was on the right pitch, and my tone was clear. In future tenses, or if I were able to do this again, I would like to improve my singing to a more clearer sound than the vague sound when I am singing. Also, I believe I could sing with a better articulation, it would sound better even though the song itself is supposed to sound soft.

To sum up, I think I was able to grasp the concept of the song well, and was able to portray it the best I can even though I myself was a female vocal. I believe I was able to sing clearly however precision in the voice would have made it better. This unit was very fun, and I hope to learn more in the future lessons.

Thank you.

And here: we will have, just for your pleasure, a disco aardvark.

Thank you, anyways, for your time, and I hope to return with a lengthier, and more effective reflection.

This is really cool ’cause I haven’t used by blog to write reflections for a while. (Meaning that you would need to prepare yourself for a longer one this time compared to the previous ones *evil smile*)

In our English, as can be obvious in the title, we were given the opportunity to learn about English poetry in depth. While we were learning about poems, as our final project, we were given (as the final task) to investigate a certain poem from the website, Poetry 180 from the US Library of Congress. Since everyone had selected different poems each, we were able to learn different people’s opinions on different poems in more depth, and grab the concept. I believe it was something like sharing the content of a book that you have read with other people about its content, literary devices, and etc. We were also told to take notes for 4 other presenters and investigate how they presented their poem and about the merit of the poem. So, here we go…

May: Lift your right arm - by. Peter Cherches

Firstly, May started off her presentation reading out the poem in a very interesting way. I guess there was the impact of the poem itself, since every line seemed to be a separate part of the dialogue, so she was able to put it into separate slides as if it was a command, and everyone could follow it. She then explained about the literary features, and how she personally connects to the poem. However, I would like to focus more on the comparison she had with herself, which was about believing, obeying and trusting. To do this, she focused on the comparison between a piece of writing she did about a friend and her talking if adults lie or not. I guess this also arises a social problem of obeying when you are perhaps of a different opinion, or never questioning of it was a right assumption or not. I think the way that May talked about the “un-questioning” of authority and the assumption of certain things being perfect let me to question my self– how much of the thing around is against what I think, however, I follow on with it, since everyone else or someone of authority says so?

Marshall: Sidekicks – by. Ronald Koertge

Once again, Marshall started off reading his poem, however in a style that varies from May’s since the poem’s content, and the way it was written is different to the one that May’s was written in. After done with reading his poem, Marshall explained the literary devices briefly, then went on to explaining the concept handled in the poem. The poem settles on the topic of heroes and sidekicks, and as he pointed out there are different focuses in the different stanzas.

Stanza 1. About the imperfection,  Stanza 2. Bravery of these sidekicks,  Stanza 3. The sidekicks within us,  Stanza 4. About the indestructible

Then, he focused on his personal feelings towards this poem which was not so positive as he said– “Lack literary features” and “depressing”. However, I am of an opposing idea. Even though I believe it is depressing that a sidekick always make a sacrifice, however, I believe it is contradictory since in the poem, it says “watch the best of ourselves–” meaning that we are also sidekicks, since we aren’t so perfect as “the best of ourselves”. He also made a connection to a TV programme he watched as a kid. I believe that he had made a great interpretation of the last stanza that people don’t want to see the best parts of themselves to die, however, the sidekicks, not being as perfect and as good looking, can die for the hero. As if like a sacrifice. I think the last verse is depicting the imperfection of the sidekicks, and showing this all in a verse saying– “The rest stood up there, tears pouring down that enormous nose”

Markus: Fastbreak- by. Edward Hirsch

Markus started off reading his poem as well, however, it had a different feeling from the aforementioned presenters because the story of this poem was different. If May’s was like a dialog, Marshall’s was like a description of a certain topic, Markus’ was like a situation during a basketball game. After he finished reading his poem, he described what a fast break was– and it was nice to know, since to be truthful, I didn’t really understand the poem until I was explained this “vocabulary”. After that, he discussed different points such as the literary techniques used throughout the poem such as imagery (visual) and similes throughout the poem. He expressed his perspective towards the topic, and about the game of basketball, which I think he was of true interest towards. He also wrote a poem as a comparison. It wasn’t necessarily a comparison, but a poem of the same topic (basketball) and once more, I think the knowledge towards this topic helped him do that fluently. After listening to Markus’ presentation, it helped me rethink about the topic of sports, which I believe is not the most important thing to my life (this is an opinion), and that there is a merit and would be fun if you watched the game of any sports, however in the case of this poem, basketball.

Kate: The Last Wolf- by. Mary TallMountain

Kate started off by reading her poem– and now, I guess every poem sounds different when read– especially when presented by a different person every time. After she had read the poem, she compared it to a book she had read called “Shiver”– which is also a book about wolves and the humane side of them. She interpreted this poem in a way that it is a long metaphor about war and conflict, not necessarily a wolf. She thought that this poem represented a calmer, sad side of the wolf than the stereotypical wolf we think as bad and mean. This also brought me to think about the theme in May’s poem, about what misperception can do to the way we act or believe. She had also mentioned about the tendency of us viewing animals (especially carnivorous) in a way that it is a danger, and a fright (like portrayed in Red Riding Hood). I also personally believe this is true due to the fact that humans are actually the predators that rule of over the world– and if we had made a chart of how many wolves killed humans, and how many humans had killed humans, the latter will outnumber the former. She also said that this poem has the tendency of “victim-ifying” the wolf, since within the poem, it clearly says on the last verse of the 2nd to last stanza that “his small dotted eyebrows quivered” which is not usually the gesture of the predator, and closer to a movement that a victim would take. After listening to this presentation I thought that I was able think in a different way, and perhaps be a different person, since I am one of the human population that thinks in a way that I have been taught, not to go beyond.

In conclusion, I think these presentations, (all four of them and all of them I listened in class) helped me to think in a different way poetry, ideas, and community- wise.

Thank you so much for reading my 1227 worded “essay”

I have put a picture for my metaphor of snow in summer (Thank you)

“Oh, metaphors, how you bring the joy to my life–” (Hyperbole)

During English class, we have a special time for us to read a book. My personal opinion: this time is very useful since, I have heard that reading books is very crucial in learning a language and also getting better at it. So, I try to use this time to the best I can. However– even though I had finished a few books during this time, I wanted to introduce you all to this well known movie, also published into book, called Dead Poets Society by Tom Schulman and N H Kleinbaum.

To summarize this story briefly, it is about 7 senior students at a prestigious boarding school called Welton Academy. Here, everything is set for the students could go to Ivy League schools. Every teacher is as strict as a line… except for 1… John Keating. Keating is an English student, and a past student of Welton Academy. At the start, while everyone thinks he is like any other teacher at Welton, the boys meet Keating, who is very– VERY different from other teachers. The boys at this academy, apart from all being very good academically, have separate problems, which Keating gets involved in. These 7 friends also find out about a long lost activity at school called the Dead Poets Society, which they later find out that Keating was once involved in. The story of youth, friendship, love, and education– about 7 different students with 7 different problems, and a teacher, who is rather DIFFERENT from the other teachers.

Here is a link to the movie trailer incase you want to watch it (This I didn’t make)

This, I made:

Thank you for watching and happy reading!!

Here is my shelfari shelf (if you liked the book, you can read more that I enjoyed )