I think that the main reason I think that it sounds Japanese is just because I’ve heard it so much while living in Japan. Except for that I can’t really think of why it sounds Japanese. It may be because it is a very slowly played. It also may be because the sounds seem a bit odd because it is missing a few notes on the scale.
Overall I think that this is a good song because it seems very traditional and good for learning about the Japanese colture.
This is probably the first blog post I have done that is NOT related to school work. One day I was listening to music on youtube when I found a song that had a speech that I thought was really good and inspirational. The speech is, as the title suggests, from a film called ‘The Great Dictator’ with Charlie Chaplin in it. Here’s the speech:
And just in case the actual typed up speech:
I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone – if possible – Jew, Gentile – black man – white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness – not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost….
!/images/photos/0000/0874/Great_Dictator_Pub_140-6_normal.jpg! The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men – cries out for universal brotherhood – for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world – millions of despairing men, women, and little children – victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.
To those who can hear me, I say – do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed – the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. …..
Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes – men who despise you – enslave you – who regiment your lives – tell you what to do – what to think and what to feel! Who drill you – diet you – treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men – machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate – the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!
In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man” – not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power – the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.
Then – in the name of democracy – let us use that power – let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world – a decent world that will give men a chance to work – that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will!
Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world – to do away with national barriers – to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! in the name of democracy, let us all unite!
Hopefully I will be able to get some ideas from this for next year in Drama class when we make a speech.
In science class we made a poster about asteroid mining. So here it is;
I think that overall I did a good gob with the general ideas for the pros and cons of asteroid mining. Although it did take a while to come up with most of those ideas I think that once that time was past it was worth it. I think that except for that I did a good job with the conclusion, explaining the different things about why I would support it.
The main thing that I would be able to improve is detail. I may have been able to do that better if I had more space. Next time i do a poster(I think I said this last time) I think that I should plan out the area of where all the information is going to be, where the title is going to be, and also my little drawing.
Although this has nothing to do with science another part I like about the poster is how I made it look beautiful good with the drawing of the awesome space ship and how i put the white paper on the black one. But of course that has nothing to do with science…
I think that the think I need to improve on the most is muscular strength/endurance and cardiovascular endurance. Whenever I do an activity that includes muscular strength/endurance I have a hard time doing it and also get very tired very quickly. That is also why I think I need to improve my Cardiovascular Endurance. I think that to improve these things the activities that I will be needing to do will be lifting weights and running. At home I can work on my cardiovascular endurance by keep on biking on the weekends.
Our second unit in art class was all about line drawings. For the past 12 or so weeks we have been practicing different line drawing techniques, then using those techniques drawing line drawings. This unit’s unit question was ‘How can we communicate visually?’ and our significant concept was ‘How can line convey shape, texture, and tone.’ The first thing we did in this unit was just learning about line drawings and how to draw them. We looked at the different kinds of line drawing techniques and also some example from famous artist, such as Vincent Van Gogh. For practice we drew line drawings of Van Gogh and also got pictures of scenery and drew that.
First Line Drawing
The picture that I based my main drawing of was one of a bamboo forest, that my father took. The camera was facing upwards, giving the effect that everything is looming over you. My father had a variety of pictures of the bamboo forest, but I liked this one because I liked the point of view and I thought that it would be a nice challenge to try and draw it.
Original Picture
The next thing that I needed to choose was what line technique to use for the bamboo and the leaves. I knew that for the bamboo I would use either hatching or cross hatching. I tries both to see witch one was better and the result was; with cross hatching I was able to do the shading better and more accurate. The only problem with cross hatching was that I couldn’t get the effect of the bamboo being a cylinder. With the normal hatching I was able to make the bamboo look more like a cylinder, witch made the drawing look a lot more 3 dimensional. After all the testing, I decided to go with normal hatching.
For the leaves, since they were so far away and I could not see all the detail in them I decided to do a mixture of scumbling and cross hatching. The hardest part with the leaves was to make some parts of it look like there were more leaves, not letting in as much light, and other parts not as many leaves, letting in a lot more light.
Bamboo Stock and Leaves Testing
In my final line drawing I have 10 bamboo stalks, but only about half of them are easy to see. Mainly around the end of the bamboo stalks there are small leaves, some places letting some light in, others not. There are also small patches of the sky visible through the leaves.
Final Line Drawing
One of the problems with the line drawing was that in some spots I made the leaves too thick that it is hard to see some of the bamboo stalks. The problem with that is that it takes away part of the effect of the bamboo looming over you, witch makes it look like you are looking up. Personally, I think that the bamboo stalks look like spines, witch I think is a bit creepy. The part that I like is mainly the way I made the bamboo stalks look like they are cylinders. I did this by making the edges of the bamboo stalks darker, giving the effect that the bamboo keeps going on, but just behind in a place unseen. Another part that I like is the different patches of the sky that are visible through the leaves.
The Hidden Bamboo Stalks
Overall I think that this was one of the most fun art units I have ever had. I think that line drawing may be one of my favorite styles of art and that I want to keep on drawing pictures like these.
I think that the best modulation devices that I used were projection and pauses. For projection, I think that I was able to project my voice to the whole audience. I also think that I did a good job adding some pauses to make the speech a bit more interesting.
I think that for next time I could improve on my emphasis. The way I was speaking made the topic sound boring because I had to change in my pitch either. So overall, just making the speech sound more interesting would be a good improvement.
In science class we learned a bit about elements and compounds, then did a poster on an element we chose.
Although this isn’t art class, I am proud of my drawings, especially the diamond. Looking at it in a more scientific way, I am proud of how I listed the three different forms of carbon. This was extra information that I found on the internet.
If I were to redo this the main thing I would change would be the title. I think I could have made the word ‘Carbon’ smaller. If I did that, then I would have had more space to add more information. But again, that isn’t really related to chemistry/science. I forgot to add more about how carbon has affected society. Also, my hand writing is a bit messy.
I think that this project was a good way to learn more about individual elements. I think that if I were to do this kind of poster for every single element, although it would take a very long time, I think that I would be a really good chemist.
In tech class we have been making a digital story, a video that tells a certain kind of story. We were told that we could make a video on anyhthing so I had some problems thinking of what kind of video to make. The one that I settled on at the end was: How To Eat An Apple.
In the MYP tech design cycle, there are four parts. In class we followed these parts while making the movie. In the investigate stage we did a tool investigation were we chose a tool that can make a digital story, and investigated it. For this part I choose a tool called Prezi. If you are unfamiliar with it, Prezi is a online tool that allows you to make something in between a slideshow and a video. I found this interesting because I have a short attention span and I find slideshows quite boring.
Since I though that not many people in my class would be familiar with Prezi, I decided to make a Prezi about Prezi.
For the tool investigation I spent quite a while making the Prezi, and it was one of my first ones so I am very proud of it. I think that the good parts of this Prezi was that I was able to answer all of the questions required for the tool investigations. The questions were; what are the capabilities of this tool, limitations, special features, is it easy to use, how it can be shared online, would the tool be appropriate to to meet and complete the assignment task?. The bad parts of the Prezi are that it took me too long to make. I did struggle to find more things about Prezi, since I’ve only used it once before. Because of this, I fell a bit behind on all the other things needed to complete the digital story. If I were to redo this tool investigation, the main thing I would change would probably have been to manage my time a bit better. I would have probably not have messed around with the things as much as I did when I made it. Although they helped, I probably would have been able to cut some time of if I took out a few of the things I tried out.
For the plan stage we did a few things. The first thing we did was brainstorming the different topics for our story. The three topics I chose for the brainstorming was; How to eat an apple, My first day at YIS, or Me falling from the sky. I came up with these idea for the apple because I once saw a funny video on how to eat bacon. The idea of for the first day of school, I have no idea were I got that idea. For the idea for me falling from the sky, I got it because I saw a bird fall from a tree when I was thinking about it. I think that for this part, I did well by thinking of the different ways of presenting the different stories. This was easy for me since I have used many if the applications on my computer before so I know what does what. If i were to redo it, I think that I would have added more detail to the brainstorming of ‘What does the story tell?’ I did have some ideas, but I didn’t write them out in much detail and I think I should have.
We then chose three tools to quickly think about and choose which tool is the best for making the digital story. The three tools I chose were Prezi, iMovie, and Garage Band. I think that the things I did well on this is thinking about the pros and cons of this tool. It was hard to think of this because I dont usually think of these kind of things when I use them. If I were to redo this again, I would spend more time and add more detail to the part of ‘Does this tool meet the task?’ It was hard to think about it since it seemed like a yes or no question.
The main thing we did in the plan section was the story boards. We did this to help us make the video, and it was really useful. I think that I did well on this and I took my time thinking about what my video would be like. I think that the hardest part was to add as much detail as I could. Since I already had what the video would look like in my head, why would I need to do this? I didn’t understand this until I actually started making the video. If I were to redo the story board, I would have just added more detail, just in general, to the whole thing.
In the create area, we made a timeline of when we would do what for the video, a list of resources needed for the video, and mainly, the creating and editing of the movie. Since at this point we were so close to actually making the video I didn’t pay much attention to the timeline and the resource list.
For the resource list, I don’t think that this was very hard at all because it was just making a list of what I need for the video. One of the hard things was to actually think of every single detailed thing I needed for the video. Since my video only required a few things for it, I didn’t really need the list. To be truthful, after I made the list I never looked at it again.
The timeline was also kind of the same as the resource list. Although I looked at it a few times after I made it, to me it seemed nearly useless. I don’t think that there were any good things I did in the timeline because I didn’t spend much time making it. If I were to redo it, I would have spent more time making it.
The filming and editing, to me the most fun, exiting and also took the most time doing it. I think that in my video overall, I did a good job with the pictures. For the white background, I got a white plastic box, out the apple in the center, then shined light from all angles from the outside. This gave it the effect of the apple floating in midair. Although some pictures did not get this effect that I was hoping for, I think that the pictures looked good. This took a while to do because my sister decided to unplug the charging camera battery, so I had to wait till the next day to do it. Although there was a big tragedy, I got over it and finished the project in time. The biggest problem I had in making the video was the music and my voiceover. I had some problems with this because when I put the music into the video, after my voice, and I played it, I couldn’t hear my voice. It took me a while to figure this out. I just recorded my voice in garage band and then put it in as a song. This worked really well because I think that iMovie though that it was a song, so it treated it as the same as the song.
Overall I think that this was so far the best tech unit that I have done. I think that this will change after the next tech unit; Gaming. I am really excited for it and can’t wait for the next tech class.
This is a quick slide show from Projeqt that I made
I think that the most challenging thing in this unit was having to do all the work in class that lead up to the main part of the unit. I think that this was challenging because it took a long time, and I learned quite a bit of new techniques, which was had trying to apply them into the visual journal for field studies. I think that this process took al long time and was challenging, but worth it.
Another challenging thing in this unit was choosing the layout I would use for each day in the visual journal. Although there were only three main components in each page, the Title, Drawing/Picture, and the Text. I had some problems finding out good layouts that were mainly different from all the other days. This was hard because there were so many choices I could make of were to put the things.
The easiest part in the unit was definitely finding something to draw in the visual journals. This is because every day we did something different and that there were so many things that I saw and found interesting that there was always something to draw. There was also all the ideas of what to draw, in the front of the book. I think that this process of deciding what to draw was too easy, that it was also difficult. Many nights in field studies I spent a long time thinking of what to draw, so I guess there wasn’t really many easy things that we did in this unit.
Although many things in this unit was challenging, I think that there were some things that I did really well in. For an example of some of my strengths are my drawing ability and skills. I think that I have done pretty well for my drawings in my visual journal. For example I am really proud of my drawing on Day 2, the one were I used the pastels to draw the picture of a tree. I think that in that drawing I used good drawing techniques and that I did well in using the pastels to make the trees and the mountains in the background look real. Mr.Curcovic helped me a bit with the background, which helped me quite a lot and I think that if I didn’t get the help the picture would have looked really bad.
Probably the biggest weakness I had some problems figuring out what to write for each day. Especially for Day 2. I think that it was probably because I was so proud of my drawing that I wanted to find something short to write so it wouldn’t mess up the drawing. Although this is art and I don’t think that the text counts as much as the art work on the pages, I think that I could have done better in the writing. Also, whenever I was doing the visual journal at field studies, I seemed to be really distracted. I think that it was because I wasn’t in an environment that I wan’t used to while drawing and stuff that I got distracted easily.
Overall, this unit was one of the most fun I have had in art class ever. I think that this is because we did so much work and learned so many techniques on visual journaling. It has been about three months working on this unit, and its one of the longest art units I’ve done, and it was a hard process. I think that this was really worth it and I am really proud of the final product; my visual journal from field studies. I think that sometime in the future when I travel somewhere that I will take a sketchbook and a few art supplies so I can make a visual journal of my own.
Hello, my name is Connor. I am a student in sixth grade at YIS(Yokohama International School) in Japan. I am from Eugene, Oregon in American but I was born in Japan and lived in Japan my whole life. My grandmother is half Danish so I am 1/8 danish, wich is a bit strange. I went to [...]
