My rather complex blog, which is about Me

My Global Warming Presentation made in Humanities class

My Recording of my 90-120 second speech made in the powerpoint, in voicethread form.

Our homework was to write why the koto piece “Rokudan” sounded japanese. Rokudan is a japanese koto song which sounds rather different from  modern koto music, which has large amounts of influence from modern European and American music, such as rock. Rokudan starts out with a slow, easy start, but gradually speeds up to a much faster end. This song is 27 measures long, and is rather interesting. It uses many of the traditional “koto techniques” such as “Shan”, “Sha-Sha”, “Kororin”, and “Ato-Oshi”. These koto techniques are commonly used in most pieces of koto music. What I think makes this song sounds Japanese is the fact that the song uses many parts used in music from japan. The scale used for this music is called “Hirajoshi”. This is a scale consisting of the following notes:  D:G:A:Bb:Eb. This tuning gives the music a darker, more melancholy feeling. I feel this is one of the reasons why Rokudan sounds japanese.

In Music class today, we did not play any instruments for a change. 2 of the Japanese music teachers and a special guest presented 3 japanese instruments. The instruments were the Koto, the Shakuhachi, and the Shamisen. My favorite was the Shakuhachi. I don’t know why, but it sounded the most natural and the most beautiful in my opinion. The sound of the Shakuhachi surprised me the most  since I expected it to be more reedy and  windy than the melodic. The melodic tones of it were suprising. I personally liked the song “Deep Forest” the best. If I have gotten the name wrong, I am sorry. It made me feel as if I were actually in the forest they were in. The song also made me very sleepy. I am amazed I did not snore halfway through. I liked the melody, as it had a emotional feel to it, which made me feel awed and sleepy. The music sounded “Japanese” because of the melodies, which sounded particularly realistically like in japan. Also, the occasional bit of singing in japanese from Mr. Patterson helped too. I think it was because of the melody and scale the most though.

Recently, in art class, we  have been making line drawings. Our unit, as you can probably tell, our unit is about line drawings. Our “Unit question”, a question which is the basis for all of our learning in this unit is “How can we communicate  visually?”. Our “Significant concept”, a concept which is also the basis for all our learning is “Line can be used to convey shape, texture, and tone.”. Our line drawings were done so that we would use different line techniques to show shape and texture. For my progress during this unit, I have successfully managed  to use many line techniques for my final project, something which i could never do at the beginning of the unit. At the beginning of the unit, I could only use hatching or cross-hatching for my project, but now I can use stippling and many other things, such as scumbling. My drawing is a mix of many photos from kamikochi, a beautiful place in japan.For my drawing, I have managed find several weaknesses, and several strengths. For my strengths, I added the stipple and hatching in the mountains so that they had depth and shadows and looked like the mountains in the photos. I also did the stipple on the ground for dirt and sand reasonably well, as  they had texture and shading. For my weaknesses, my river looks like a sheet of plastic instead of actual water. I think I could have corrected this using a different line texture, such as the infamous squiggly lines. For another weakness, I think I did the cross-hatching by the trees as a form of shading badly since they look completely different than the other shadows nearby. I would say that another weakness is how the duck looks completely unrealistic and has the texture of sand. Overall, I would say that my drawing is reasonably good, but there is room for improvement. Next time, if there is a next time, I would correct all fo the problems said, but in the process cause some new ones. But it was still fun. I enjoyed this unit.

7C Drama: Given Topic Speech from YIS Arts on Vimeo.

7C Drama: 1 Min Speeches from YIS Arts on Vimeo.

These are the 2 speeches which I did in drama class. the first one is the topic which I chose out of a few choices, and the second is one I chose on my own. The one I chose out of the choices given is about fashion. The one I chose on my own is about Giant squids. I think my speech about fashion is better because of many things, but mostly because I did not say “umm…” as much. I also think I should improve on not saying umm, and on volume, as I may have been a bit quiet.

7C Drama: Given Topic Speech from YIS Arts on Vimeo.

This speech was incredibly captivating because of the fact that he spoke loud enough so we could hear it, and he brought up some very interesting pieces of data in his speech, also about fashion.

This is my humanities project. We had to draw the changes in a fictional city before and after the industrial revolution. It was interesting because of the changes which we found. I hope people who have to do the same project don’t “borrow” this project for their own use, because If they did, I would sue them for something to do with copyright.

The project which I am most proud of this year is my essay on Alzheimer’s disease. I chose my essay  because I am rather proud of it, sinceI did a large amount of research on Alzheimer’s disease, and I think I got a fair bit of interesting data about this disease, which we know very little about. For this project I got a 7 out of 8, which is actually very good. A 7 or an 8 is similar to an A in other schools. This is the link to the essay. I am very proud of it, and this essay is the one I have chosen to show my family for the student-led conferences.

In class, we have been tasked with finding a video about sportsmanship on the internet and write about it.  The sportsmanship video which I chose was Perfect Sportsmanship which is about the baseball match where how the umpire made a mistake which ruined the. I think that the umpire, and the pitcher who had every reason to start screaming and trying to kill someone were the very image of sportsmanship when they apologized and comforted each other. I think that the reason I think that they are the very image of sportsmanship when they were gracious to each other, even though one had accidentally done something bad to another. The video, if one chooses not to click the link above is below.

I hope you like it.

This is my video for the globe theatre which me and my colleagues made.

In class we had to answer the questions below. My answers are added too. Please don’t copy.

Question 1. What is an atom? Describe the different parts and state where they can be found in an atom. Answer here: an at0m is the smallest thing possible which you can see under a microscope.

Question 2. What is an element? Give three examples of an element and give a use in the real world for each of these elements. Answer Here: an element is a substance which contains only one kind of atom. Elements cannot be broken down into simpler substances in a laboratory.

Example 1:Oxygen. this is also called air. we need this to breath

Example 2:Gold. we use this for making electronics and jewelry

Example 3:Carbon. we use these for pencils, diamonds and other stuff.

Question 3. What is a molecule? Give three examples of a molecule and give a use in the real world for each of these elements. Answer Here: a molecule is a group of two or more atoms bonded together, yet there can be two or more of the same type, such as H2O.

Example 1:water. we need this to keep hydrated, so we drink it.

Example 2: Aspirin. these are painkillers commonly used when you get a headache.

Example 3: Salt. we put these on potato crisps which we eat.

Question 4: What is a compound? Give three examples of a compound and give an use for each one. Answer Here: A compound is a mixture of two or more atoms which are not the same.

Example 1:water. we drink it

Example 2:aspirin. we use these to halt the symptoms of headaches slightly

Example 3:salt. making  potato crisps and ketchup taste better

Question 4: What is a physical change? Give an example. Answer Here: a physical change is a change in state for a substance.

Example: Water to Ice.

 Question 5: What is a chemical change? Give a few different examples. Answer Here: a chemical change occurs when a new chemical or substance is formed.

Example: Magnesium+Hydrochloric Acid= Hydrogen+ Magnesium Chloride

Example :   Hydrogen+Oxygen+Hydrogen= Water