Q: Choose one of the figurative images from your power point assignment and explain how you chose that image, and how that image supports the meaning of that particular slide.
A: The figurative image in my artifact (see image above) was chosen because I believe it fully represents a punishment. While in the story, neither Frankenstein nor the Wretch are bound in chains at any point in the stories, they are punished. Handcuffs are often used in prisons, and serve as a reminder of the prisoner’s punishment. This slide is all about punishment, and how each film’s punishment for the characters differs. The cuffs only enforce that fact more.
Core Competency Self-Assessment
Q: How did you select images and words to create meaning? What this easy for you? Why or why not?
Selecting images and words was somewhat easy for me. The reason for this is that while I was constructing my powerpoint, I thought about themes from the film that would be easy for me to symbolize. These themes included rebirth and punishment. The more I thought about my themes, the more images came flooding through my head, along with words and quotes that backed up my meaning. It made the construction of my powerpoint go a lot smoother than I thought it would.
My very first year of high school was like one giant rollercoaster. Throughout the year, I met a lot of new people, students and teachers, and grew as a person through their company. I overcame challenges that came in the form of… math equations and science tests. Despite all these academic problems I ran into, I was able to enjoy my year to the fullest because of the friends I made and kept throughout it. I still have a few stretches, though… procrastination’s a bad habit.
This website is by far my favorite (at least, when it comes to websites relating to my learning) because of how useful it was to me during my first semester. This calculator was a life-saver when I forgot certain things, or needed hard answers to finish equations quickly. It’s more useful to me than any other calculator I’ve tried!
My Favorite Video
This is my favorite video that relates to my learning because I find it easy to unwind and listen to this kind of music while I work on academic things. When I’m calm, I find it easier for me to learn.
My Favorite Image
My favorite image includes some of the friends I’ve grown with throughout the year. Just looking at this brings back many memories that I’ve loved and cherished, even though they happened so recently.
My Favorite Quote
“I have no talent. I am only passionately curious.” – Albert Einstein
This quote perfectly describes how I feel academically. When I become interested in things, that’s when I put my effort in to learn as much as possible. When I’m passionate about something, I absorb whatever I can about the subject.
Work Cited
Desmos | Scientific Calculator. https://www.desmos.com/scientific. Accessed 19 May 2023.
“Education Quotes.” BrainyQuote, https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/education-quotes. Accessed 19 May 2023.
Piano Ghibli Collection 1. www.youtube.com, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGl75kurxok. Accessed 19 May 2023.
I was able to demonstrate my communication skills during the strawberry DNA extraction lab that we did for biology. Me and my partner worked really well together, listening to each other and being engaged during the project. However, me and my partner, despite following proper instructions, were confused. When we looked around the room, we weren’t getting the result everyone else was getting. We were talking about the project and communicating the steps to each other correctly, but our test tub was different than everyone else’s. I was able to communicate to other people that there might’ve been a problem, and everything turned out alright in the end.
We didn’t really have a good description of Mr. Matthews, so we took the vision of an abusive father and went with it. All of our other characters were made with the design that Andrea came up with in mind. Our plot points where moments that we felt were most important to his character, as his actions have definitely affected others, despite not being as present in the story as others, such as Garvey or Cole. Our setting was the city of Minneapolis, where Mr. Matthews resided throughout the first half of the story, in contrast to his son, who spent the first half of the story isolated in nature. His son grows and changes, while he remains the way he is.
The word ‘mood’ means a temporary feeling to me. We selected this specific track because we believed that it fit the mood that we wanted to set. It wasn’t supposed to be extremely intense, but it was supposed to invoke a feeling of danger and uncertainty.
Core Competency Reflection
An example of where I built upon someone else’s ideas is when I was creating one of the avatars for the movie. I wanted to go for similarity, so I took the look of one of my group members’ avatars and used that as a guideline, in a sense. I appreciate feedback on my writing and analysis and prefer it comes in the form of constructive criticism. If I’m making mistakes or have something that could be improved, I want to know what I need to work on. In discussions and conversations, I help to build and extend understanding by referring back to text used in the material we create things based off of. When there’s some sort of disagreement, I try to look for hard facts to settle it.
Original Logo DesignLogo Scaled Down (Scale Factor: 1/2)Logo Scaled Up (Scale Factor: 2)
This was a math project in which we were tasked with creating a logo. Once we made our logo, we had to redraw it at a scale factor of 2 or 3, and then redraw it at a scale factor of 1/2. For my Logo, I decided to draw a crown. (I know the pictures suck. Give me a break.)
Core Competency Reflection
In this project, I demonstrated some Core Competencies. Specifically, Creative and Critical thinking. It takes a while for good ideas to come, obviously. So, when ideas don’t come to me right away, I look for some inspiration through music. After I listened for a while, my logo idea just popped up in my head. I demonstrated Critical Thinking when I was trying to figure out how big I wanted my original logo to be. I had to be open-minded when looking for an alternative solution when it came to the size of my logo. Honestly, I used to think making a logo was easy. After doing this small project, however, I realized it’s more difficult than it’s chalked up to be. This was like a mini-exploration, almost. I do want to find a way to plot a more complicated design that’s a little kinder to scale. I feel like if I asked for some feedback, I could bounce off the ideas of other people a little bit.
How I manage my stress in my day to day life is very… questionable. I care for my wellbeing regardless, but that doesn’t always mean I’m doing it all that well. I often write things out to calm myself down, or go play some games that calm myself down. Honestly, some of the games that I play calm me down (like rhythm games), while others just make me more agitated (shooter games, fighting games, etc.). So it’s both a cause of my stress and a coping mechanism. Sometimes it’s more of a stressor than a coping mechanism, and sometimes it’s the other way around. It’s helped me calm down on many occasions, but at the same time, I’ve gotten very stressed out because of some things that happen on social media, or because of games. But, I’ve found ways to use technology to support my wellbeing. An example of this is a self-care app that I’ve downloaded on my phone, which has helped me calm down a lot when I get stressed out.
Core Competency Reflection
I can explain when something is unfair and advocate for others. Oftentimes, I find myself in situations were something is unfair. I’m able to stand up for myself and explain to someone else when I find that something is unfair. It may be stressful to do so, but I manage well enough, even under that stress.
I find it easy to be part of a group. I don’t find it difficult to work with other people. I find it easy to contribute to things, even when the group manages to stress me out. Taking up a role and responsibility isn’t all that hard for me to do.
I am kind to others, and support others when they need it. Especially with people that I don’t know, I try to be helpful and supportive. I know how stress can affect someone’s mind, and I know that not everyone will be having the best of days. So, I try to be supportive of others when they’re trying new things, or doing something that they’re not comfortable with.
We want to have enough money to pay a down-payment of 15% (minimum) for a house. The places that we’re looking at all cost around $800,000, so we need to save up $120,000 for the down-payment. The house market has stagnated, so the prices aren’t expected to change in the next three years. We already have $80,000 saved up for a down-payment, and every year, we make an additional $10,000 to add to those savings. But, even with the additional $30,000, we’re still short of our goal. So, what can we do do get there?
Our options include a 1 year annual, non-redeemable GIC with an interest rate of 3.5%, a 3 year non-redeemable GIC with an interest rate of 4.2%, and stock investments. Of course, we can also use a standard savings account to help reach our goal. We can divide the money however we want, as well.
So, keeping our options and our goal in mind, this is my solution. During the first year, we can put $60,000 into a 3 year GIC. Then, we can put $20,000 towards stock investments. The interest rate for the 3 year GIC is 4.2%, so by the end of our first year, we’ll have $62,520 from the GIC. Now, let’s say that the stock market isn’t doing so well during the first year. We’re losing about 6.9%. So by the end of our first year, we’ll have $18,620 from our stock investments. We also earned ourself an additional $10,000 to add on. We’ll just keep that in a savings account. So, we have a grand total of $91,140 at the end of our first year. Obviously, we’re short by quite a bit. But now for the second year. The $62,520 should be going up because of our interest rate, so now we have $65,145.84 saved up from the GIC. The stock market’s doing better now, so we’re gaining 7.5%. So, by the end of our second year, we have $20,016.50 from our stock investments. We have another 10,000 to put into our savings account, giving us another 20,000 dollars, and bringing our grand total up to $105,162.34. And now for our third year. We have a total of $67,881.97 from our GIC. And this year, the stock market’s still doing quite well, so we now have $21517.74 from our stock investments. And at the end of our third year, we have another $10,000 to add to our savings account, bringing our total from our savings account up to $30,000. Add all of that together and you get our grand total of $119,399.71. We’re less than $1000 short of our goal by the end of our three years.
Visual Representation (Numbers = Years Passed); Made using Excel
My Justification
I thought this solution would work out, even though it’s short of our goal. Why? Because this is only one outcome. Stocks aren’t all that predictable, after all. It’s hard to tell whether or not they’ll go up or down, but if they go up, then the risk is really worth it, in my opinion. After all, you can still earn a bit of money to reach your goal relatively quickly if you have less than $1000 left to acquire. And if the stock market’s doing very well, you might be able to make some extra money to keep.
Collaboration With my Group
Working with my group went pretty well. I’m honestly kind of surprised that I found it kind of nice, considering the fact that I normally don’t really enjoy group work all that much. My group members helped clear things up when I was confused or didn’t completely understand what we were doing. Most of us shared our jobs, too. Sometimes, I would calculate, sometimes another person would calculate, while someone else wrote down the calculations. We all contributed and brought up different solutions and ideas. I didn’t use any of the solutions that my group proposed, though. The solutions that we brought up all worked pretty well, but I wanted to try and come up with a solution that was unique to me. If I were to rate my ability to collaborate with my group members, I think I’d give myself a 3.
Core Competency Reflection
I can advocate for myself. When we were talking about making up our own solutions, other people took the lead. But, I also brought up what I thought was a good idea.
I can take on roles and responsibilities in a group. Everyone shared different roles while we worked. I was able to take my own role and be responsible while we were working together.
I can work with others to achieve a goal. When we were doing group work, we were all coming up with ideas and trying to make sense of the problem. I think that we all bounced off of each other pretty well, and that helped us reach our goal quickly.
I can reflect on my thinking. After the group work was finished each day, I often thought about what I had brought up and what I had done. I often thought about how I could’ve done things differently, and where I might’ve went wrong. I actively tried to understand what we were doing, and I actively reflected on my previous thought process when it came to the assignment given to us.
Made on canva.comMade on canva.comMade on canva.com
Work Cited:
Hickey, Chelsea. “Teenagers: Why You Should Care About Your Digital Footprint.” Social Media Club, 22 May 2013, https://socialmediaclub.org/blog/from-the-clubhouse/teenagers-why-you-should-care-about-your-digital-footprint/.
“How to Protect Your Digital Footprint (Expert Tips).” Cyberpedia, https://www.bitdefender.com/cyberpedia/how-to-protect-your-digital-footprint/. Accessed 20 Sept. 2022.
Protecting Your Online Identity and Reputation (for Teens) – Nemours KidsHealth. https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/online-id.html. Accessed 20 Sept. 2022.
What Every Teen Needs to Know About Their Digital Footprint | Net Nanny. https://www.netnanny.com/blog/what-every-teen-needs-to-know-about-their-digital-footprint/. Accessed 20 Sept. 2022.
Personal/Social Competency Reflection
I know that my Digital Footprint can have a negative impact on my life. If I say something without thinking, that can easily be taken out of context. If I post something without thinking, it can be screenshotted before I’m able to delete it. Once I say something, or once I post something, it’s going to be there forever. I can’t get rid of it. So, I’m going to be making an effort to always make sure that I’m thinking logically and taking a breather when I feel it’s necessary, so I don’t say anything that I can’t take back.
You always have choices when it comes to the internet. You can choose to be anonymous, and you can choose to show yourself. Showing yourself is always a bad idea on the internet, however. I always choose how I want to present myself on the internet, by choosing and changing my screen name. I also make the choice to not comment on any posts that I might come to regret later on in life. It’s always my choice, and that’s how it’s going to be.
Honestly, I’ll admit that some of my hobbies have come from the internet. A part of my interest in art does come from what I see online. The talented people that put effort into their drawings really makes me want to try and be like them. But, at the same time, I’m always remembering that I have to be myself, and not model myself into other people, or a ‘more ideal’ version of myself. The internet can really make people think they need to change, when they really don’t.
