This year been a very interesting one, with many changes to plans and attempting to figure out online school. However, over the course of the year I feel like I have learnt a lot about myself as a person. I’ve discovered new interests this year which I never thought I would start. I have also learnt about myself as a friend, realising the importance of meeting up physically with friends. Academically, I feel that I have learnt a lot about myself. I feel that the workload was particularly challenging at certain periods, therefore I have learnt more about my study habits. During times when the workload feels overwhelming, I find it easier to divide my tasks and use the Pomodoro technique to keep focus. This helps tasks feel more manageable to accomplish within the time frame and also helps in staying productive. I hope to continue using this technique in the following year. Moreover, my biggest achievement is stepping out of my comfort zone in certain activities or services for CAS, in previous years I usually choose activities which I’m comfortable with. However, this year I chose to do something new, such as yoga, as I felt that it would have been beneficial to both mental and physical health. Next year I would like to continue to work on my new interests in my free time. I would also like to continue to develop my new study habits, trying to become more organised in the following year to better manage the upcoming tasks.
Category: IGCSE
Outline of Sappho and Fun Home comparison
Sappho and Fun Home
Culture identity and communication
- Sexuality
- Importance of sexuality on their identity
- Identity – sexuality is a key part of both their identities, for example today Sappho, for many, is a symbol of female homosexuality
- Fun Home showed the impacts of sexuality on her life, a part of her identity that she was able to relate with her dad
- Both Alison and Sappho are unapologetic of their sexuality
- Alison’s father, however, cannot accept his sexuality fully
- he ignored his identification with the female gender role and forced himself to live a traditionally “male” life
- felt forced to lie to everyone around him and himself about his identity
- Alison’s father, however, cannot accept his sexuality fully
- Sappho and Alison are both very open with their sexuality as it is a very important aspect of their identity thus feeling the need to communicate it to others
- Sappho expresses this through writing poems
- “Im greener than the grass is” unapologetic of how she feels and her love for another woman
- Poem of jealousy “In my eyes he matches the gods”
- Alison expresses this in Fun Home
- Bruce is contrasts this by suppressing his sexuality as opposed to embracing it
- Sappho expresses this through writing poems
- Sappho also faces internal conflict in her jealousy, as she is in love but unable to do anything
- “In my eyes he matches the gods, that man who sits there facing you”
- “Once I look at you for a moment, I can’t speak any longer”
- This is similar to Bruce, in that he although he is attracted to males he has to suppress this urge
How sexuality is depicted
- In Fun Home Alison depicts sexuality as something very complicated but realistic
- For Alison sexuality will always be something that is connected to her father and something which she explored to understand herself better -> identity
- Sappho has portrayed her romantic life almost as a fantasy
- Fun Home shows different ways people may handle sexuality, Alison who is able to fully embrace her sexuality. There is also Bruce who is unable to fully accept himself, in gender and sexuality which has resulted in a lot of emotional turmoil. This portrays the different weight sexuality may hold on a person’s identity
- Sappho is similar to Alison whereas Bruce contrasts Sappho and Alison in the way he handles his sexuality
Do rules for social media change as you age?
From the article “When is a child Instagram ready?” and the youtube video “Teens explain the rules of social media” I now have a better understanding of the question, the first resource gives us the perspective of teenagers. The rules that they have noticed while being on social media, “People are just gonna get annoyed with your account on social, I never posted millions of selfies in one day.” This was a common topic in the video, something every teen had talked about. This was a rule that all the teenagers knew about, you were not allowed to post that frequently as it would annoy others. Teenagers could have had this perspective as they have a better understanding of how people will react, they are more aware of others. Not only that, but they are aware that others will be judging you, therefore they will take into more consideration the things that they post. The idea of blending in with the crowd is something important as a teenager as standing out could make you a target. This understanding gives them different rules for social media as opposed to a nine year old who has just started.
A parent who was testing out what their child would do with their account found that “He put up a video of himself doing a front flip wearing only his boxer shorts, followed back every single user who followed him, and went “live” in a friend’s basement without the parents knowing.” This is a big contrast compared to the rules that the teenagers had. The nine year old had been more free with his account, not worrying about how others will view him therefore doing what he wanted with his account. Moreover, instead of not worrying about how others will view him, perhaps the nine year old was not yet aware of the result in doing those things. He has not been exposed to these things yet and does not have an understanding on the subject. Compared to the teenagers that made it clear not to post often, the nine year old did not follow that social media “rule.” The parent had found the trouble spots of their nine year old “by the end of the weekend, I had learned the trouble spots — his frequent posts, inappropriate wardrobe choice and when to get adults’ permission among them.” This would be a result of how young he still is, unlike the teenagers who have already understood what is appropriate and inappropriate, the child has not been taught these things.
The difference with age is that as you get older, you have a better understanding of what is appropriate, knowing the consequences of certain actions. A young child who has just gotten his first account would not have understood that yet, you are more exposed to things as you get older. Not only that but as a young child, what people think of you is not as important as when you are a teenager. These issues can be solved with discussion, discussing with your child the rules when getting an account, what will be appropriate and what is not. Answering this question will be different depending on your age. For that reason, discussion is beneficial when answering this question. By discussing, you will have a wider view, have an open mind and learn new ideas. By discussing it with people that vary in age, you will understand what that age thinks the rules are, and their reason behind it. Discussing it with people of the same age is still useful, their idea of what the rules of social media are could still be different. Finding out the reason why that is their opinion will give you a deeper understanding to the question and have a better response.
My final answer is: Rules for social media do change as you age, as you get older you will be exposed to different things, this gives you a better understanding of what is appropriate for social media.
My perspective on video games
While watching the debate, an interesting idea was that from video games you gain experience. This experience will help your learning, the experience will be combined with your learning. While playing video games, you are able to learn different perspectives, this experience will help you when faced with different challenges. This will also be beneficial in school, as many times we will need to think about things from a different perspective, a subject that this could be useful for is GPERS or English. We are able to gain a deeper understanding from video games, video games can be a positive learning tool as long as we aren’t using it too much. From watching the debate and listening to the audio recordings, my perspective has not shifted but it has been confirmed, I believe video games has many useful benefits.
The road to success
What is success? A word hard to define, its meaning different for each person. According to the dictionary success is the accomplishment of a goal, for some it could mean making their bed that day, or going to the gym. “To not to have entirely wasted one’s life seems to be a worthy accomplishment, if only for myself,” a goal for yourself, self satisfaction. A question to ask is, what is success to Chetan Bhagat? From looking at him, we can clearly see many successes, from being a best selling author to having Bollywood movies about his books. However, as Helen Hayes said, “Everybody starts at the top, and then has the problem of staying there. Lasting accomplishment, however, is still achieved through a long, slow climb and self-discipline” the problem is to stay successful, constantly achieving new goals and going further. The question is, how has Chetan Bhagat stayed successful and continue to stay successful?
About Chetan Bhagat
Chetan Bhagat is a best selling author, publishing multiple books and having them made into Bollywood movies. He has done this to reach as many people as possible, from years of experience of trial and failure he has realised that for people to understand, you have to be entertaining. To reach as many people as possible, you cannot be boring, this is why he has decided to reach people through entertainment. Some would say he has accomplished his goal, he is successful now, however for him this was not enough. Something Chetan Bhagat values is adapting, in order to stay successful you have to keep adapting. If he were to stop when he became a best selling author, he may have not stayed successful, people could have gotten bored and left thus failing his goal to reach as many people.
Stepping out of your comfort zone
Chetan Bhagat has adapted numerous times, he started writing in newspaper columns, going on social media, he has done things that some stayed away from. By going out of your comfort zone and trying new things, you can benefit greatly. People tend to stay away from Bollywood movies, with the mindset that it was inferior. With this mindset, you will not get anywhere, you are blocking yourself from experiencing new things and reaching more people. Chetan Bhagat has only gotten more successful, with each passing day he has reached more people. He is getting through to people because of everything he has done, the work that he has done has payed off. A quote from George Bernard Shaw is “Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything,” with an open mind you are able to make a difference. You need to think differently, be creative, be open to new opportunities to be successful, Chetan Bhagat has done just that.
These are some books written by Chetan Bhagat, the 3 mistakes of my life being the biggest selling English novel in India’s history.
Taking the first step
Although Chetan Bhagat is successful now, he was not always happy with where he was in life. He was once unhappy with his job, being a banker and having a bad boss. However, he decided to take his mind somewhere else and write a book. By making this first step, he was able to get to where he is today. We must have an open mind, keep changing, keep trying new things and you will be one step closer. This is an important message we must all keep in mind, we all face doubts in our life, unsure whether to take the first step. From the journey Chetan Bhagat had, we can see how important it is to take the first step. To not lose motivation, and keep trying to reach your goal. Once you have reached your goal, and you can call yourself successful, you must keep changing and adapting to go further.
What success means to us
An important quote we should keep in mind is “You are what you love, not what loves you,” in this day and age people often think of others opinion on them. They forget to think about themselves, only thinking about others impressions of themself. This can be connected with success as we each have our own success, how someone else defines success will not be how you define it. This is important, it is okay to call something some may see as small a success. We should not be making goals we think represents success, instead we should form a goal that will bring us where we want to be. A goal that will help you go further to where you want to be, that should be what success means. Making a goal we think represents success leads to disappointment, as we realise the outcome is not what we wanted. We have our own goals in life, being successful depends on your goals, we shouldn’t think of others opinions. We should not compare ourselves to other people, our friends and role models will have a different definition of success, success determines on ourselves, our personal goals.
We each have our own definitions of success, it is okay to be proud of something small. However, once succeeding something, we must think about what to do next. How do we adapt from this to do more? This is important to stay successful, to stay ahead. It is also important that we remember where we started, to stay humble, by doing this it is easier to have an open mind. To welcome new opportunities, to go out of our comfort zone so we can create change. Often times we will find ourselves stuck, not knowing what to do next, this is okay. In order to be successful, we must know how to get back up, to continuously try again. The question left to think about is, are you successful?
Bibliography
Dreams Media, Mumbai India – www.dreamsmedia.in. “Books.” Chetan Bhagat, 19 Aug. 2016, www.chetanbhagat.com/books/.
Dreams Media, Mumbai India – www.dreamsmedia.in. “Pictures.” Chetan Bhagat, 25 July 2014, www.chetanbhagat.com/about/pictures/.
“Chetan Bhagat Photos.” Sucess Story, successstory.com/people/photos/family/chetan-bhagat.
http://conclave.intoday.in/article/india-today-conclave-2012-chetan-bhagat-best-quotes/3481/38.html
“Adaptation.” Goodreads, www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/adaptation.
“Charles Bukowski Quotes.” BrainyQuote, Xplore, www.brainyquote.com/quotes/charles_bukowski_752453.
Divi Builder
The Design Basics
Proximity
Proximity is using visual space to show the relationship in your content, this means making sure related items are grouped together. Blocks of text will be together, and visuals will be together, this is to show how the items are related with one another. It will make your work easier to read and understand.
To have a stronger use of proximity in my draft, I could have deleted the cherry as there were already fruits in the background, and the texts were together. The cherry was the only one there, it did not belong with another visual.
White Space
White Space is negative space, the space between your content, between lines and outer margins. The purpose of white space is to help you understand the different sections, giving room for your work to breathe, making sure the work is not too tightly packed.
I think the white space in the sides are okay, the content has enough room to breathe. However, to have a stronger use of white space I could have left more space between the text and the top of the border. The margins at the top are too close, I could either make the box on the inside bigger, or make the text smaller.
Alignment
Alignment is to have each grouping evenly spaced and aligned with equal sized margins. Alignment will make the composition easier to navigate, without this your work will look disorganised.
I did the alignment myself in the logo, so I could have improved on paying more attention to the detail. For the word ‘Friday’ I am not sure if it is aligned well, if the margins are equal. For the other text I could have also looked more carefully as looking at the draft again, the margins don’t look equal. The text seems to be heading towards the left, I need to make sure it is in the middle.
Contrast
Contrast is when item is different from another, contrast helps catch the readers eye, create emphasis or make them pay attention to something important. We can use contrast by changing the colour, size, shape or visual weight of the object, we can also use contrasting styles of text.
In my work I see contrast between the background picture and the red, with the white text. This calls attention to the text, and makes the reader see the text first. This is important as I want the reader to see what the logo is about first, then look at the other visual elements. There is also contrast between the border and the picture of the fruits, making the logo easier to see.
Repetition
Repetition is to have a consistent look and feel, this means reinforcing your design by repeating or echoing certain elements. For example, staying consistent with the colour palette, using the same header style. Staying consistent will make your work easier to read, this is so that viewers will know what to expect which will allow them to focus on the content.
I stayed consistent with the font, using the same font in the logo. Although this is because I did not have much text, I could have made the word ‘Friday’ have a different font. I mainly focused on staying consistent with the colour palette, this logo is mainly white and reds. I used white for both the border and the text, to create a divide between the reds in the logo. I used the same red the Cherry had for the red in the background.
Rough Draft Work
https://lifehacker.com/5864004/the-done-manifesto-lays-out-13-ground-rules-for-getting-to-done
Process of creating a logo:
Touching up with FOTOR:
After reading the article, I realised that I could have experimented more, instead of trying to make it perfect it would have been better to try different things out and make mistakes.
Thinking about my client
I want my logo to communicate the purpose of writers fortnight, to show the passion of the speakers and those who were listening. The empathy map connects to this as when listening to the speakers in writers fortnight, you will feel passion, admiration and inspiration. I want my logo to communicate this idea, showing how impactful writers fortnight is.
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I was already familiar with the Illustrator, however from experimenting with different tools I hadn’t tried before I found myself learning new things. I did not know about the type on a path before this, however from looking at the tutorial I could follow how to do it. When dealing with problems, it’s important to think of a different solution and keep trying.
I had empathy by helping someone that was not as familiar with Illustrator. I did not have to persevere with an optimistic mindset in todays class but when I first learnt Illustrator this was something important to keep in mind. It took a while for me to understand the different tools and use them well, so being resilient was an important skill.
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How has social media become this way?
Question: How has social media become this way?
I came to that question as many of the ideas from the idea bracket have been depressing, talking about how we have become addicted to our phones. The conversations that I had was talking about how we rely on our phones so much, and we talked about how this has happened. The articles I read also talked about how many of the things that we have done has changed, and there are different issues we are facing because of this. By asking the question how social media became this way, when we started to become addicted will help us fix our problem and stop relying on our phones as much.
This question invites further dialogue as you can think about when this has started to happen, if this question is a good thing or a bad thing. We can ask ourselves the things that we are doing that is making ourselves addicted to social media, and how we can improve and change this.
We would need to avoid the slippery slope, if we allow A to happen then Z will eventually happen too, therefore A should not happen. This can be used in this situation as A is using our phones and social medias, and Z is us being too dependent on it. This applies to the situation as we can start talking about many hypothetical situations and start avoiding the issue, this is part of the emotion fallacy and using fear. A loaded question is something that needs to be avoided, as many of the questions that can be asked can’t be answered as easily without looking guilty. Anecdotal, using personal experience instead of statistics can also be something to avoid. Many of us can relate to the situation of using social media often, updating on there, therefore many of us will turn to look at our own personal experiences.
We should be thinking about this question because everyone uses their computer or phones now. In schools, we depend on our computer for homework, we use it as a learning opportunity. We use a variety of apps to do this, and use websites such as the OLP to help us. As 9th graders we use the internet and social media often, which could mean being addicted. By thinking of this question, we can realise the things we are doing and try to do them less often. We are able to be more open minded and think of solutions.
Digital Perspective Reflection
When working with others, I value when people are respectful, and will be a good listener. This is important as many times people will have different ideas, and although it may be something you disagree with it is important to have an open mind and respecting that person. Being a good listener is something I value as everyone has an idea to share, not listening might make you lose a good idea.
The number one thing you can do to support me best when we work together is to be respectful, be a good listener, and being able to compromise with each other on disagreements.
When it comes to tech, I am good at editing pictures to make posters, and I need to get better at using different apps or websites. I need to get better at using different apps or websites because this will let me use more tools to create better things.
I think I am more introverted in group work, you may notice I don’t talk as much in group conversations. Please remember I prefer working in smaller groups.
Deborah Emmanuel
In this talk, Deborah Emmanuel has told us that we do not have to be labeled by society. Labels can cause more damage than good, making us feel like an outsider. She has also told us that things do get better, life can change even though it may not seem that way. In the beginning she had said that she didn’t feel like she fit in a category that most Singaporeans fit in, like most of us she wanted to feel accepted and wanted to feel like she belonged. This is a struggle that many of us had, and she has given tips on how to overcome the many struggles we face.
Deborah Emmanuel shared many poems with us, one of them being about her past relationship. When she first wrote the poem, the last line meant something completely different than it does now. Now the last line shows hope, that things will get better and you are not alone. She said that this was because of meditation, it has helped her heal. The spiritual practises showed her how to let go and love. She has shared her many struggles with us, and we can see that things can get better. She was in a situation where she felt she had no purpose, but her poetry has helped her understand herself. This is important for us to remember, even if it is not about poetry, something that you enjoy can make yourself feel better. With poetry, it has allowed her to let everything out, engage with her emotions.
A take away I got from this experience was that life will work out in the end. Even though it may not seem that way, everything will be okay in the end.
How your job can create change
Today Robyne Hayes has shared with us what she has done in her job, telling us interesting facts about child marriage. Some of the facts that she told us surprised me, one of them being 130 million of girls are not in school when they should be. The things she has told us opened my eyes, and made me realise more things. She has used her job to create this change, with her job she has changed so many young girl’s lives. It has made a big impact in their community, and has made someone happier. They realise that things can be changed, it doesn’t have to be this way. She has empowered many young females. Robyne Hayes partners with different organisations to create this change.
She has chosen this job as for her words don’t come easily, but photography does. She had done photography in highschool and has used that to do what she is doing now. In her job she has gone through many powerful moments that have impacted who she is, one of the best moments was giving the cameras to those girls. This gave her the chance to have a better understanding of their lives.
This has made me realise the amount of opportunities I have, I have the chance to get a good education which most of the girls don’t have. I can go outside and socialise. I should be mindful of the things that I do have and be grateful.