Hey ya’ll, and welcome back to the blog! 

Today’s post is about the finance project we just finished in PGP 10. This project was all about finance and becoming “financially literate”. The driving question in this project was: “How do I support my career life choices?” I support them by marketing myself through media that describes my values and what I can contribute. Moreover, by learning about the world of finance and becoming financially literate. The final products for this project was making business cards and resumes. 

The first concept we learned was the world of financial literacy. We watched several videos and did activities as a class. The 5 terms of financial literacy are: budgeting, improving credit, saving, borrowing, and investing. One way that we learned about this was when we watched “Moneyball” in class. Moneyball is a baseball movie about a poor team that tries to assemble a winning team though stats and numbers. It’s one of my fav movies and has a really stacked cast. We ended up writing a reflection explaining how the movie demonstrated financial literacy:  (insert craft link here:)

Another key part of this project was our stock market simulator. In this simulator, we were given a certain amount of (fake) money, then we would invest it. The person in the class with the most money by the end would win a 20$ gift card from Mr. Harris. There was also an award for whoever invested the most “environmentally friendly”. Along with the simulator, we kept a weekly journal of our stocks. (Here’s a link to my reflections:) I didn’t do all that well in the sim, as I only made $176. When investing, I took into account environment slightly, but I mostly invested in high blue chipped stocks like Pepsi and AMD. Looking back, I should’ve done more research on my assets and kept a closer eye on when it spikes or drops.

After doing all this work it was time to show it off at the Spring Exhibition. 

Our set up was an “office” style theme.

In the office there was separate divisions based on the topics of our podcast, so I was in the music division. At our respective desks we presented our business cards, and we pitched our podcast to the people who stopped by. This was an interesting layout and something unlike any exhibition I’ve been apart of. It was pretty busy, by the end of the night my voice was gone lol. Here’s a photo of Zach and I at our station:

 In summation, I found learning about finance to be practical and something that is useful for the future. Even though I didn’t do great in the simulator, I still learned lots and found the right strategies to use (better to lose fake money than real money). The exhibition was a blast and it was fun to dress up in our snazzy gear. 

Thanks for reading guys!

Hello readers, and welcome back to the blog. Today’s post is about the recent project we’ve been working on in PGP 10 at Seycove. This project was all about “positive brain training” and reading the book “atomic habits” by James clear. The driving question was: “How does balance within my life create opportunities”. With effective habits that have a clear process, we are able to create opportunities. As mentioned in the book, if you keep improving and refining, the results will be remarkable. If you continue to use Habit 7: sharpen the saw, you will keep getting better at your craft. 

To start it off, we explored “positive brain training”. There are 5 ways to do this: Meditation, conscious act of kindness, excersise, journaling, and gratitude. For each day, we would practice one of the 5 traits, and we would record in our “craft daily notes”. I found this to be really effective, as we were able to reflect and mention what we could improve next time. 

We listened to a TED talk by Shawn Achor called “the happiness advantage”. This talk was all about seeing the positives in things, and that positivity=productivity. We did a “4-2-1” activity, where you take the 4 main ideas, then you keep breaking it down until you reach one summary sentence. Here’s what my 4-2-1 looked like:

We also took a look back at the “seven habits”, a topic which we explored last year. In groups, we were each assigned a habit book, and at the end we did a 1 sentence summary on how our story relates to the habit. This was an opportunity to “jog our memories” on what the habits were and what they can be used for. It was important to re-learn these, as the seven habits directly relate to “atomic habits”. 

Our next step in this project was to begin our Atomic Habits reading. But first, we had to create an effective reading schedule. My plan was to read 15 minutes a day, and to be done the book by the end of spring break. For my schedule I used things:

I found my schedule to be very effective, as the reminder would pop up every day, which made it easier to complete and stay true to my plan. 

As I began to read, I noticed the level of detail with personal anecdotes that related to habits and creating systems. He talked about his baseball career, and how he came back from that brutal injury. I liked that use of examples, cause it brought upon a more personal side. He also mentioned the idea that small habits can make a big difference. Usually, we try to do things in big steps, instead of sticking to the process. Focus on getting 1 percent better every day. 

Next, he introduced the “habit laws”, which were for making good habits, and breaking bad ones. The 1st law, make it a obvious, the 2nd law, make it attractive, the 3rd law, make it easy, and the 4th law, make it satisfying. And for breaking bad habits, it’s the inverse. 

Another point that I found interesting, was that we can always revise and improve our habits and systems. Sometimes, I find myself thinking “this is good enough”, or “I can’t make it any better”. But in reality, there’s always room for improvement and refinement. 

To summarize, I found this project to be very useful and beneficial to my goals. Through the positive brain training, I was able to find more balance and cover multiple aspects of my life. And with the schedule and task management of my reading, I became more organized and I got better at working with Things. As for the reading, I connected to the author through his in depth anecdotes and examples. 

Thanks for reading!