The Sounds of my Life

Welcome back to my blog! Today we are going to talk about a project I did all about music! Personally music for me is an escape from reality and an opportunity to get lost in my head for a while. So, as you can imagine I really liked this project. The final product was to make the “playlist of my life” where I put together a playlist of 5 songs that represented different aspects of my life. 

We would then take these songs and analysis them to talk about how and why they are apart of our playlist. All in order to answer our driving question:


How might we use music to represent ourselves and text?


Before we could make our playlist we needed some practice with analyzing using literary devices. What are literary devices you might ask? Well they are techniques used in literature to elevate a piece of work. These are the ones that we used:

One of the activities that we did that I personally enjoyed was poem analysis. We went around to different poems and answered questions about them in order to understand the authors intentions better. I felt like I was able to build a lot of my skills especially with analysis and questioning things that already exist. I colour coated my text to make it easy to see and worked well with my group following the read 3 times rule. The 3 time rule is where you first read something aloud, again in your head and a 3rd time aloud again.


MARINA and the diamonds, Oh No! Was probably the hardest analysis I had to write. Rather than having to search for meanings I found it difficult to narrow down my thoughts because there were so many things I could have focussed on. Being able to clearly express what I wanted to say was a struggle and I found myself repeating words throughout all of the analysis’s.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, SMAP’s Only Flower was the easiest analysis to write. I think the main reason for this is because I had a deeper connection to this song and was able to draw on my culture in order to elevate both the analysis and presentation of this piece. I taught people how to make origami flowers as a representation of my culture and in the song. You can see the original video below.

I feel like my analysis got better the more I did them and each one was stronger than the last because I was able to tell a story about my childhood, parents, and morals.

 

Overall I am proud of how I did considering we have 3 weeks for this project. If I were to do this project again I think that I would still choose the same 5 songs that I did but I would talk more about how the songs have influenced who I am as a person. I was able to engage my audience by giving them something to do however I felt that the time limit made it hard for them to pay attention to both the instructions and the analysis. If I were to do this again I would either sent them the instructions to making the flower or have made flowers that I could give out. Something I liked that other people did was have the lyrics out for people to look at. I think that helped me follow along and I could have done that as well. 

Finally here are some honorary mentions that didn’t make it into my playlist: 

And here are some songs from my classmates and I:

 

 

Hiroshima and John Hersey

Many people know about the Hiroshima incident at the end of WW2 where the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan. Today we will be talking about a book that follows the stories of 6 survivors of that incident, called, “Hiroshima” by John Hersey. 

I will spare you the details but if you are interested in the book I would recommend reading it. Today though, is a critique of the book itself. The book was first released as a news paper in America, published by the New York Times. However, in the current book, only the first 4 chapters were part of the newspaper addition. The 5th and final chapter was added when Hersey went back 40 years later to interview the same 6 people. As such, it has a very different tone and style that it follows. This being the case, you may see me talking about the 2 differently.

Historically speaking the book was one of the first accounts of the Hiroshima bombing in such a blunt way. People at the time were celebrating because the war was over. So, they weren’t used to the bomb that ended the war to be painted in such a negative light. In the first 2 chapters there were a lot of lines like “their faces wholly burned, their eye sockets were hollow, the fluid from their melted eyes had run down their cheeks” or “her hand came off in glove like pieces”. These lines helped to set the mood and also made the reader think about the effects of the bomb. Due to the lines being so direct, one can imagine how western countries who read the paper must have reacted. At the time there were a lot of media coming out that supported the power of the nuclear weapon. Media such as:

Add link

Or even in children’s toys like:

So seeing how the atom bomb was depicted you can see why this book is so popular. Hersey used lines such as “man is not now in the state god intended, he has fallen from grace through sin” a quote from Father Kleinsorge or “there was so much unavoidable destruction” to depict the bomb as a bad thing that causes death and destruction. Even in the last chapter Hersey includes statistics like “In October 1952, Great Britain conducted its first test of an atomic bomb and the United States its first of a hydrogen bomb. In August 1953, the Soviet Union also tested a hydrogen bomb.” to show that we didn’t learn from our history. We continued to create these powerful weapons during the Cold War and now we have enough to destroy the earth several times over.

There is a simulation to do that here.

Considering that the book was written based on interviews with these 6 people we have to question the accuracy of the stories. There are a lot of times in traumatic events where we miss things we would normally catch, we fill in the gaps, or we think something is worse than it is. In the book lines such as “A first aid kit was hanging undisturbed on a hook on the wall” and “His desk was in splinters but a mere papier-mâché suitcase, which was hidden under the desk, stood handle-side up, without a scratch on it, in the doorway of the room, where he could not miss it” are things we can question. We can’t say that they actually did or saw this or if it really was the only unaffected thing in the room is questionable. Things that we can say for sure also go back to Hersey. He did interview them so he got to see them face to face. Hersey knows for a fact that Ms. Sasaki’s leg is shrunken, or that Me. Tanimoto lives in a snug house with 2 television sets and has added things on his own to help the tone of the story. Using words like “snug” to be descriptive.

We went through a lot today but I’m sure there are things that I missed or chose not to talk about. I decided to critique this book from a historical point of view in terms of accuracy but that’s not the only way I could have tackled this. If you are interested to see other critiques of Hiroshima then check out Kaia’s post or Thomas’s post. Should you read this book keep in mind some of the things you read here today. I personally enjoyed the fact that Hersey didn’t sugarcoat things but if you have a weak stomach I would warn you that he can be quite graphic. See you guys next time. 

The Great Plague

Alright so just by me saying “Great Plague” most people know what I’m talking about. That’s right, the plague. This was a significant case that changed the medical industry along with how we react in emergencies. Welcome back to my blog. Today we will taking a look at the Great plague and why it was so significant. Over the past few days, I have been looking at historical significance and what makes something significant. To build on this I will be convincing you, through this post, that the plague was an important historical event that had lasting consequences.

Now if you are very into history you will know that there are more than one plagues. The “Black Death” was from 1346 to 1352. Another famous one,  the one dubbed “the Great plague” happened in London from 1665 to 1666. In this post I am mainly talking about the London one. 

In order for something to be significant it has to first effect people at the time. This is a easy box to check considering that 75,000 people died as a direct consequence of the plague. Due to the sheer number there is a memorial constructed in Winchester, Hampshire.

But that’s not the only way it’s remembered. One way or another we have children’s rhythms made after this. The most commonly known and one I personally sung along as a child is ring around the Rosie. For those of you who might not know or need a reminder of the lyrics:

Ring around the Rosie,

Pocket full of Posie,

Atissue , Atissue,

We all fall down. 

Now some of you might be thinking “that’s not how it goes” well do to its popularity the lyrics themselves are varied. The one I’m familiar with uses “Husha, Husha” instead of “Atissue”. Even with the small differences in lyrics the meaning of the song isn’t lost. It start with “Ring around the Rosie” which is a reference to the rash that formed as a consequence of the bubonic plague. “Pocket full of Posie” talks about the flowers that people would wear in order to hid the smell. In my version “Husha” was said because they didn’t want people to find out. And “we all fall down” was a reference to how, because they hid the fact that they were infected, it spread and they all died. As dark as that was, I always remember enjoying the game, spinning around with my friends until we couldn’t stand. 

It’s slightly ironic, how we’ve turned a tragedy into something so enjoyable. Whatever the reason, it helps us remember and I think that if we remember that in itself is a type of mourning and respect.

The plague has its lasting effects till today and as long as we have our knowledge of it, it’s influence isn’t going away any time soon. it’s also something to look back at and learn from. Especially in times like now, during Covid, you can hear about people referencing the plague a lot. So, to finish this post off, was the plague significant? Yes. Many dark times turn into a learning experience that influence how we deal with similar situations in the future.

 

If you enjoyed this post and are looking for more historically significant cases check out Grace or Angelo’s posts!

Launching our party!

How should we govern ourselves? That is the question that I have been trying to answer for the past month and a half. Starting with looking at what kind of government we currently have to looking at what we can change and how. Finally I’ve come up with an answer. 

Our party, the Ubiquitous Party of Canada was created with the idea of change. Our group; Alex V, Alex O, Jordyn, Liam and I have worked together in order to create the campaign video you see above. If you’d like to know more about our party check out my last post. 

This project was really insightful for me to see what I actually know about how the country I live in works. Knowing who has the power to do what is a very important thing when it comes to voting and making political decisions. So, throughout this project I was surprised again and again by how little I actually knew and in realizing that I wasn’t alone.

Honestly, when we started this project I was worried because we had a much more flexible timeline then we usually do and we were not constricted by due dates. The first thing our group did in order to keep ourselves on track was to make a burn down chart and assign roles. We knew when our final video had to be done by so we worked backwards to create a manageable timeline and assigned jobs based on our strengths. Alex V and Jordyn are both strong speakers and constant voices in our classroom so it was a no brainer to have them as our main advocates. They also wrote our script which I then took and made into a storyboard. Alex O was our main editor and sound director. Liam was our cameraman and helped me with the storyboard.

Something that I was really proud of for this project was how active I was as a team member. I felt that I stepped up for this project and that can be seen by how I made the storyboard, logo, and visuals for our video. As a team member I was able to do my fair share to contribute to our party and did so by playing to my strengths.

Of course because of the flexibility we had in this project there was a responsibility for me to be able to complete things on time so my group members could build off what I do and create a final product we are all happy with. I was really on top of my work and had the storyboard done in time for us to come back together and revise the script using feedback we got from each other and our teacher. Thanks to this, we had a smooth time with filming.

As happy as I was with taking on responsibilities as a group member and taking in feedback I do realize looking back, that I failed to communicate as much once we were outside of school. I wasn’t messaging my group members as much and because of that we had a hard time filming outside of school. Of course, there are some things we couldn’t change like someone had work that day or a sports game but, if we were more on top of communicating then I think we could have had more time to revise which would elevate our final product more than it was. If I know that I will have a hard time meeting outside of school I will definitely be more vocal about that in the future. Despite that we still got all our filming done and were able to create our final campaign video.

Let’s review, politics is kinda crazy, communication is key, and if you want to change something about the government you should make your own party, or do a little more research…. As you might have already guessed this was a school project so my group wasn’t the only ones who made a political party. Want to learn about how my classmates thought we should be governed? Take a look at the other parties here: Noah, Zoe, Grace, Ciara and Anders. See you guys next time!

 

Political Parties- what’s one more?

As you learned in my last post, long live the Queen, Canada runs as a parliamentary democracy. And as a part of that there are parties within Canada that you and I support and possibly vote for. But are the current parties doing enough? I don’t think they are. So a group of people; Alex O, Alex V, Liam, Jordyn and I decided to create our own party. The Ubiquitous party of Canada.

Why ubiquitous you might ask? Well we take ideas from both sides of the spectrum to create a new voice. One that not only believes in change but has steps to accomplish it. Our party has 2 main focussed;  Universal Basic income, and truth and reconciliation. So let’s break that down.

Universal Basic Income or UBI is when, as a government, we would provide money to each adult citizen every month. We believe that this would improve the economy and help households stabilize. In order to get the money for this we would reform taxes as well as set tariffs for big companies.

One of the problems that we see today is aboutTruth and Reconciliation. In Canada we have something known as the 94 calls to action that was published in 2015 as a way to step tin the right direction. As of 2021, 14 of those have been completed. As a way to build on this and give more power to aboriginal communities our party has decided to guarantee them a seat. To do this we went with population representation. For those of you who don’t know 5% of Canadians are indigenous. If you do the math that would guarantee them 15 seats in parliament. This will help to give a voice to those communities and would contribute towards a self-governing future.

As a party we are headed towards the future, with realistic goals. Look forward to my next post about our political campaign where we will release our first campaign video! vote Ubiquitous party of Canada.

Long live the Queen!

It is elections time! Which sounds like a perfect excuse to talk about todays topic: the Canadian government. For those of you who don’t know Canada runs as a parliamentary democratic government with a constitutional monarchy. The work is divided between our provincial, federal and municipal governments. But how much of our current system do we really need? One of the more talked about topics is the constitutional monarchy and whether or not we still need the Queen as the head of state.


So why is it that this is a debated topic? Well many people have begun saying that because the Queen is a figure head, she is not needed in the affairs of our country. In places like Australia the campaign to become a republic is growing as well. So the question is should Canada follow suit? Well, in order to figure that out how about we start with; what does the Queen do anyway?


The Queen has representatives that hold certain responsibilities in our government. In Canada we have the Governor General and the Lieutenant General. Their main jobs are to open and close parliament, and to approve of bills passed through parliament. The most notable thing the Queen has power over is to dismiss a prime minister or to dissolve the parliament.

Current Governor General: Mary Simon Job: - summoning parliament - prolonging parliament - dissolving parliament - reading throne speech - giving Royal Assent
Current Lieutenant Generals: 10 Job: - Ensuring there is a premier - Appointing member of Executive council - Approving government decisions

As far as power goes that’s all the Queen does. And half of it is just in her name. She really is just a figurehead. So here’s the argument: Canada is an independent country and doesn’t need to have a monarchy especially when they live overseas.

Ottawa is where the House of Commons is. Buckingham palace is in London.

To many, this is a pretty valid argument. However, few consider the consequence of such actions. Having the Queen as our head of state doesn’t actually hold much consequence for us – we have most of the power and we get to keep international relations. We are not the only country with the Queen as our head of state, so keeping it as such helps to maintain future prospects with these countries. This in turn improves our trades. It would also cost a lot in order to fully remove the U.K from Canada. Also everyone knows who she is. Her face is hung up in schools and businesses. There are movies and songs dedicated to her. Why break tradition when all it will cause is confusion? The outcome would not be worth it – leaving us with strained relationships, a whole lot of money problems and a divided country. With the amount of problems already surfacing within Canada, there’s no justifiable point for this to happen for the foreseeable future.

 

One more thing that stops this from happening. It is practically impossible for Canada to remove the Queen as our head of state.

…Yep! Turns our a bunch of years ago when we first made the Queen head of state, we also made it really difficult for us to change that. In fact, out of all the countries with Queen Elizabeth as head of state, Canada would have the hardest time removing ourselves.


So is this really worth it? No! Although some might disagree at this point there isn’t a real reason for anything to happen. If we really wanted to be apart from the U.K this change should have happened years ago. All in all a constitutional monarchy works for us and has worked for the past 40 yrs. We have a system that works so I see no reason to change it. How much do you guys know about our Queen? If you have any cool facts or questions? feel free to leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts!

Now that that’s cleared up maybe we can move on to things within Canada itself? Like maybe… what’s the most important democratic principle? Check out Holly’s blog to find out!

 

 

Summative post

Today we will be talking all about the 1950s and as you might have guessed, my new episode from my podcast. Our driving question for this project was: How did Canadian life develop after WW2? My conclusion to this was that Canadian life improved thanks to technology within the home.

I started searching for the answer to this question thanks to the influence of the Deep Cove Heritage Society or DCHS for short(link). They dedicate their time to collecting photos and stories in order to maintain the Deep Cove history. I would highly recommend checking them out and sending them any photos or stories that you have to share! They have some awesome photos from the 1950’s to now and you can see the comparisons and changes that have occurred. Below you can see some of these photos.

+DCHS photos+

I was really impressed by the amount of influence technology has in shaping today’s world. Technology within the home after WW2 skyrocketed. Televisions where introduced into the home and targeted ads were in the majority. In my final essay I was able to connect that with the baby boom and the family oriented society after WW2, came inventions to help with family oriented activities. Such as the invention of the blender to help housewives move around more efficiently in the kitchen. It is very interesting to see how quickly economy and business can adapt to social norms and needs of the time.

+photos of before vs now (I.e cars, suburbs, televisions)+

Japans influence in Canada

Hi guys welcome back to my blog. Today we will be talking about how Japan has influenced the world with its technologies and inventions. What I find very interesting is that Japan only came into the world radar around the end of WW2. There was even a period of around  200 years that they were actually a closed country. They closed off their boarders to almost all foreign countries and only opened them again when they were forced to do so by America. Thank god they did. Japan is known for being one of the leading innovators of technology and we have a lot to thank them for. If trade routes and foreign relation went any different we wouldn’t have the types of technology we have today like batteries, cameras, audio technology, calculators, game controllers, and so many more.

Today I will be talking about one of these inventions: the GPS. Also known as Global Positioning System. To say that the Japanese invented the gps would be incorrect. In fact the one who owns the patent for it is America as it was developed by the U.S military. However Honda, a Japanese car company, invented a similar device for car navigation 14 years prior to America. Honda called it the “Electro Gycrocator” which was the first commercially available car system and was released in 1981. This was the, in my opinion, foundation to the car systems that we use in our day to day lives.

In my opinion there are things that are only in Japan that should be incorporated into Canada and other countries. More specifically 1 thing that I have seen in Japan that I firmly believe should be brought to Canada. Whether this is for convenience or just because I find this both hilarious and really cool I will not say. So without further ado this item is: Vending Machines!

Believe it or not there are over 5 million types of vending machines in Japan. Not just for the typical drink either. You can get anything from drinks to shirts to masks to dogs from these vending machines placed all over Japan. This includes in stores and out on the street. The amount of variety that you get from these vending machines are amazing. I think that these vending machines improve a citizens daily life and allows for a higher quality of life. I like that you can buy masks from vending machines which are considered a necessity during a global pandemic. It allows people to buy a mask without having to interact with people or go into stores encouraging social distancing and safe protocols. Especially because these vending machines are usually accompanied by a hand sanitizer station. These vending machines are often found in high traffic areas such as train stations. Due to the morning traffic in getting to work, forgetting items is common and having to go back home is hard to say the least. Being able to buy items like umbrellas or ice cream or shirts helps to keep the crowd moving. I would like to see this in Canada because I think that it will improve our way of life.

  • Drinks and snack
  • Ice cream
  • Flowers
  • Crabs
  • Ties, shirts, and other clothing
  • SIM cards

In conclusion I think that Japan is an amazing place with lots of ideas and I am glad that they opened up their boarders to share these inventions. I think that being able to share these ideas with not only Japan but the rest of the world has allowed civilization to improve as a whole and allowed innovation to continue.

 

Disney land and “fake” happiness

Disneyland is an escape from the everyday cares of reality. That is the illusion that Disney sells. Disneyland is a manifestation of that illusion. And people bought it. Disneyland was created after WW2 and people wanted to forget about the conflicts and violence. So what better way to escape then a fun filled fantasy theme park? People were all over it. So what was so appealing about these rides? Let’s talk about one of them in particular. The Mad Tea Party. A ride for all ages and one that didn’t change over the years. Why? Because people couldn’t over think it. There is practically nothing controversial about spinning teacups. As such it was one of the only opening rides that hasn’t changed. They did move it from where the Arthur King Carrousel is currently to next to the Alice in Wonderland ride. However, other than a few safety changes, the ride itself hasn’t changed over the years. Thanks to it’s set-your-own-pace kind of feel, the ride is always busy and has at least a 10min wait time. The adaptivity of the park has kept it as a fantasy filled utopia that provides an escape from reality to this day.

Podcast – WW2 and Hiroshima

Hello and welcome back to my blog. Today we will be talking about WW2 and the Hiroshima bombing. Or at least what I learned about them. In order to share my learning I made my next podcast episode about WW2 all in order to answer the driving question:


How might we use stories to understand the causes and consequences of WW2?


This project was a series of ups and downs mainly because of how large scale the event was, and the delicacy needed in order to talk about WW2 as a subject. The first thing i needed was information. Ignorance may be bliss but knowledge is power. I decided to learn more about the Hiroshima bombing for 2 reasons. The first is that I am Japanese and I thought that I might be able to provide some insight into how it has a lasting effect until today. The second reason is that I have been to the Hiroshima bombing museum as well as the Gen Baku Dome pictured below.

https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/775/

Source: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/775/

I think that I used this competency in the first milestone where we were researching what nationalism is and how to use in text citations. If I took anything away from this project it was how to use in text citations and how useful they are. I felt that I was able to show evidence that backed my claims because of the variety of sources I looked into. One thing I struggled with, with this milestone was putting my ideas together so that it didn’t sound like it was jumping from topic to topic and the reader wasn’t confused.

 

The second thing I needed was an interview, or a story. I did contact a couple of people but to no avail, and needed up using an oral story from the national museum of the Pacific war. Here I learned about a man named Kenneth Evans who served in the war. I also got a interview with Japanese teacher, who grew up in Hiroshima. This interview was really insightful into learning how the bombing effects people who live in the area and what people think about the effects.

I showed the use of this competency not as well as I could have in this project. I did manage to contact a teacher of mine who lived in Hiroshima which I thought was very cool. Adding the personal experiences from someone who lived the consequences and having them be a different nationality helped to elevate my podcast. I was disappointed that I couldn’t get a response and I failed to show my attempts by not cc or showing that evidence. Instead I used a clip from the memory project which helped to show veterans options on the tragedy.

 

I showed this competency when we were doing the literary discussions. I felt that I contributed to the conversation and brought a new perspective that was needed in the discussion. It was also a nice chance to see whether or not I took away the same things as the other students.

One thing that I really enjoyed about this project was learning about stories people wrote about war. One in particular called the “War Prayer” by Mark Twain. This short story was about the 2 sides of war. The honour that it can bring to your country and the devastation the fighting can bring.

In my podcast episode I focused a lot on the consequences of the Hiroshima bombing. I felt that focussing more on the after effects helps to bring to light how serious the situation was, especially since Hiroshima usually becomes an after thought when talking about the war because it was at the end. In that sense I felt that I was able to appropriately talk about the events leading up to the incident and both the direct and lasting consequences shown through the 2 interviews. My Japanese teacher talked about the lasting consequences to people today and why the incident is still relevant, and the immediate consequences through the audio from Kenneth Evans who talked about what he saw at Hiroshima.

Finally I recorded my podcast and published it. I published it to a site called anchor which automatically sends it to other platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music. You can check out my podcast here.

Conclusion
This project was really an eye opener and helped me understand how tragic the war was. It also puts into perspective the fact that, even though there were so many deaths in the Hiroshima bombing it was still only one incident in the larger scale of the war. Hearing the bombing from different perspectives allows me to understand the diverse opinions and consensus on the topic. In conclusion my answer to the driving question would be; that there are emotional consequences that last within the Japanese people until today. Being able to remember these tragedies and learn from them so they are not repeated.