The Actual School Folder

This year, as a class, we went to California! Please, as you listen to this, search up a California related song.

So, we are currently working on a unit about disruption. Disruption has, well, disrupted everything in our life, from technology, to history. It’s what makes us move forward. And what’s a better place to talk about disruption than Silicon Valley? Silicon Valley is where so many big companies started, like Apple and Google. Naturally, we had to go.

Let me do a day-by-day run through for you, to get you all up to speed.

Day One:

We got up at 3:00 am, in order to be at YVR for 4:30. Let’s just say, I needed a lot of coffee. We did a quick stop in Seattle, Robbie almost lost his wallet, and then we were off to San Diego.

We had lunch, and then headed to Torrey Pines Natural Reserve, where we went on a nice walk. Then we headed to dinner, and had some really good food. Then it was off to bed.

Day 2

We went to a safari park! It was really cool, and I wound up making a podcast there… no spoilers. We spent the whole day there, and we got to see a cheetah run at full speed!

We spent the whole day, and I lost my sunglasses 🙁

Day 3

So, next day was the USS Midway. The midway used to be a ship that they used in battle, but is now retired and became a museum. It was really big, and really awesome! We spent the whole day there as well, and still didn’t get to see everything.

Fun Fact: the amount of money it takes to feed everyone on a ship like the midway for a week could send over 40 students to college for 4 years. That’s a lot of money.

Day 4-5

We went to High Tech High! If you’d like to read more about my experiences here, I’ve written another post. Go check that out here!

Day 6

After we flew to San Jose, we got up the next morning and went to google! It was really cool, and also vaguely scary because we were technically just sneaking around the campus. We had lunch, and then headed to Apple Park

We only got to go to the visitors center, but it was still really cool!

After that, we headed to the Intel Museum, which had a history of Intel (shocker).

Day 7

This day, we went to the computer history museum. It was very interesting, as it had a whole rundown of computers. Willa and I got to play pong, and I learned about WoW (World of Warcraft). I’d definetly go there again!

After this, we went to Stanford! Not actually attending classes, because we’re all a bit young for that, but we got a tour by a guy named Chase! Very awesome, though I don’t think I’m gonna go to Stanford.

Day 8

We did a lot of transportation this day. We got in a car, then on a train, then on another train, then on a cable car. And we were in San Francisco! I actually was there over the summer, but we did different things this time.

We went to Twitter Headquarters, and took some stupid pictures

Went To Twitter!

We then headed to the Golden Gate Bridge, and it was really nice! There were sea lions in the water, and it was sunset so we got a nice view.

Day 9

Our last full day was eventful, to say the least. We got a walking tour in the morning from Wild Wes, who was from s company called Wild SF Walking Tours

The afternoon we spent at Alcatraz, which I found to be one of the best parts of the trip. I watched Escape From Alcatraz before this, so it helped put it into context.

We had a cable car adventure…. we hit a car with our cable car. Well, the car hit us by serving infront of it.

And then we headed home

But that’s not where this blog posts ends! No, I made a book! *gasp*

And that’s all I have for you!

Read you later

Sincerely, Me

Okay I’m actually really excited for this blog post. It’s about something that I really love and really enjoyed doing. So a few weeks ago, before spring break, Willemes gave us an assignment. Pick out five people that we really admire and look up to, and arrange them in a sort of business style meeting.

The head person goes at the front, second and third go beside them, and third and fourth go at the end. I was immediately on board. I love talking about people who inspire me, because maybe it helps other people discover these people and become inspired as well.

But on the first day I already encountered an issue. I couldn’t think of anyone.

Okay, that’s a lie. I had thought of people…. I just thought of too many. I’ll list all the people who were voted off e island at the end, but I finally narrowed it down.

Charlie Bradbury from Supernatural, Misha Collins, who’s an actor I like, Bobby Singer from Supernatural (again), Lin-Manuel Miranda, an actor, singer, rapper, broadway producer…. I could go on, and finally Minerva McGonagall from Harry Potter. 

We should break this down into why I chose each person. So for each person we chose, we had to include a visual and a paragraph to go with it. I took that as ‘go overboard’. I’ll show you the paragraph and visual of each person, and then go into more depth. Seriously, I could have written an essay on each person.

Okay, that’s near impossible to read. Pretty much, it says:

“Charlie Bradbury is one of my largest role models, and would be at the head of my table. She’s a strong female character on the show supernatural. After being in a car crash and being slightly illegal in hacking into websites, she made up for it by becoming a monster hunter. She’s a real role model to me because she always tries to do what’s right. When her mother was in hospital, she used fake credit cards to donate money to the hospital to keep her alive, instead of using the fake money to buy her own things. She’s hunts down monsters and helps her friends whenever they need her, and even died from them. She was also the first real LGBTQ+ representation on the show, who wasn’t a total stereotype. She goes to prove that no matter your genre, or sexuality, you can be a really good person and can achieve anything”

Damn that was a lot. To sum it up, I really admire her. She’s such a nice person, a real hufflepuff. She was loyal to her friends until the end, and helps out her friends whenever they need her. And also, like me…

Moving on, to Misha Collins:

“Misha Collins is an actor, and a really large charity worker. I’d have it my table for multiple reasons. The first is his confidence. He’s so confident, and has great people skills. He inspires and talks to so many people, and I admire that he also is a large charity worked. He uses his fame to raise millions of dollars for charity each year, and has his own charity called Gishwhes. It’s a worldwide scavenger hunt, and all proceeds do to charity. He also came from a harsh beginning, being almost homeless with no money, but he rose and now he’s very famous, and gives back to th community. Misha Collins really inspires me to give back to the environment around me, and not be selfish. And that’s why I’d have him at my table”

I love Misha Collins so much. He’s funny, and caring, and so inspirational. He raises so much with Gishwhes (Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen) which is a great name. He also so confident, when he does panels at conventions and just when meeting and talking to new people. I really admire that.

Okay the gif froze, but it’s funny. I swear.

“Bobby Singer is the dad-like figure of the Winchester brothers on Supernatural. He would be at my table for many reasons. First of all, he’s very selfless. He always puts other in front of himself, he’s out his life on the line more than once for his friends and family. Another reason is his wisdom. He always knows what to say, whether it be helping with some knowledge, or with some advice, he says the right thing to help. He always has a very good understand of the term Family doesn’t end with blood’. He took in the Winchester brothers when their father was absent, and he treats them like sons, though he could have easily locked them out of his life. They aren’t blood related, but he treats them like it, for no reason other than he cares about the,. Tangs why I would have Bobby Singer at my table”

So Bobby is great. He was one of my favourite characters on Supernatural, as he’s always so smart and caring. He constantly refers to Sam and Dean as ‘my boys’ or even ‘son’, because he was honestly more of a dad to them then their actual dad was. Their father was always trying to teach them how to shoot monsters and kill things, but Bobby helped teach them how to play baseball, and helped them with their homework. Also, another thing

He

Is

Very

Sarcastic

So that’s why I would have Bobby at my table. Next up: Lin-Manuel Miranda. (Manuel is pronounced ‘Man-well’, not ‘Man-you-elle’)

“Lin-Manuel Miranda is a director, hip-hop artist, actor, singer, rapper, songwriter, and has won many awards. He’s achieved so much, and right now he’s only 37. He really inspires me because not only has he won three Tony’s, and many other awards, but he’s such a great actor, and song writer. He really inspires me to keep on acting, because he’s achieved so much in so little time. He wrote three musicals, and the songs for the Disney movie Moana. He wrote the musical Hamilton, and took these amazing historical figures, and cast the actors based on the acting abilities. There are so many people colour in his plays, and that inspires me be amuse he really believes in right for all, and that it doesn’t matter the colour of your skin, it’s your abilities that matter in life. I’d have Lin-Manuel Miranda at my table because he’s such a kind person, and believes in equal rights, and is such a great theatre person”

I love his musical Hamilton. I think if you’ve read my posts, you know this. He wrote the entire musical about Alexander Hamilton, and its got such a diverse cast. He also plays the main character, which I find funny. “I’ve written a musical. Who shall play the main part? Ah yes, me”. There are three sisters in it, the Schuyler sisters, and they don’t even look related. If you just looks at the actresses, every time they are different and new.

Also, comparing the actors in Hamilton to what the actually historical figures look like is really interesting.

Aaron Burr:

Thomas Jefferson (left), and Alexander Hamilton (right):

Thomas Jefferson:

Alexander Hamilton:

Lin also wrote his first musical in his Sophomore year at high school. It’s called In the Heights.

Last one, is Minerva McGonagall:

“Minerva McGonagall would certainly be at my table. She’s a strong character that always does what she thinks is eight, and sticks by it. She was loyal to dumbledork until the day he died, and stood up to shape when he tried to attack Harry Potter. She also stood up to umbridge when she was taking over, but in a way that wasn’t of obnoxious that she’d be fired. She also always helped Harry, even if what he was doing was against regulations. She was very loyal to all of her friends, make sure that they and the students were always okay. She was so selfless, and I really admire that about her. She also was a very good fighter, and a sting negotiator, which is a good trait to have. That’s why Minerva McGonagall would be at my table”

I’ve always looked up the McGonagall. She was a very important and strong character, and I love her so much. She has my respect for her loyalty and her caring heart. She helped Harry when he needed it, and always helped Dumbledore and gave him advice.

We also had to do one more thing. Create a visual with all of them together at a table, or in some sort of arrangement:

But I just thought of something. Why have these people at your table, when you could have them help you make a table? That would be amazing, having all these people go to IKEA and help you make a table. ‘Where are the directions?’ ‘I threw them out’ ‘Guys I can do this myself’. I would watch that.

Okay, so for the others that I really wanted to put in there. Thomas Sanders. I really admire him, he’s so funny and happy and accepting of everyone. Eliza Schuyler-Hamilton. She spoke out against slavery, she raised funds for the Washington Memorial, she interviewed Soldiers that fought in the American revolution to help tell their stories, and founded the first orphanage in New York.

So that’s all for this blog post! I hope you learned more about me, and are inspired by these people as much as I am!

Read Ya Later

Ruby

Not much. So, after spending literally all weekend in bed, it’s time for another blog post! And what am I writing about now, that the excitement of the Metaphor Machines is over? Drum roll please….

We’re making superheroes! Seriously, it’s awesome. So, the premise of the project is to take an element, and study it, than find out what superpowers it would have. For example, Hydrogen would probably fly as it’s a gas and its lighter than air. Pretty cool, right? Yeah

So, we got to choose an element. We were o

But the only cool thing about bismuth is that it’s used in Pepto Bismol. Not a very exciting super power

“I am Bimuth Man. I can cure your stomach aches!”

So we went with something else. Bromine. Bromine [Br on the periodic table] can be a solid, liquid, or gas. It’s pretty cool, and a really nice colour.

So, we had to first off learn a bit about our group. My group consists of Willa, Alex, and Aiden. And…. we all like Ramen. You can’t judge me here, ramen is the source of life okay? And one of my favourite bands, Fall Out Boy, have a record company called Fueled By Ramen. So, of course…. that’s the name of our group. We have a group patch, which looks like this:

I designed and drew it, and I’m proud of it. So, the next step was learning more about the periodic table. What did we have to do? Make a poster about it.

It looks nice, I think. We have all of the periodic table, plus information on two other elements, Bismuth and Bromine.

Keep in mind, this is only a half way check in on our project, so I will keep you updated in the next science post! Until then

Read ya later

Ruby

So, over the past few days, we have learned about the magicness of Revolutions. This is all tied in to a large project we’re going about a Metaphor Machine. But let’s save that for another post

So there was this guy called Crane Brinton. Quite unfortunate to be named after a bird, but he made this theory about revoltutions. What if they all followed the same pattern? I have made a video that you can see down below to explain his theory:

All caught up now? Good. So, I had to ask myself a question about this theory

Do all revolutions apply to this theory?

Let’s find out.

Lets take, for instance, the American revolution. I’m going to split this into stages, to make it easier

Stage 1: 

So, the tensions between the British and the colonists have been building up. Not any violence yet, but the colonists aren’t doing so great because the British are trying to tax them

So, following it so far. Small tensions, realizing injustice.

Stage 2:

The colonists went to violence in 1770, and the British shot at a group of protestors, killing five men. In response, the colonists dumped tea into the Boston harbour

How dare they

A group of colonists, who I think included George Washington himself, denounced taxation.

But, this is where the theory slightly falls apart. Sure, there were protestors, but no one really splits up into groups about what to do with the British. And it goes to violence quite quickly….

Stage 3:

When the group with Georgey (not calling him that again) met up again, they formed an army. War broke out, and a lot of people died. The Declaration of Independence was drafted. Some people even came to Canada to run from the violence

So this gets quite violent. It makes sense for stage three.

Stage 4:

People become less violent as the British start to retreat. The Americans sign peace treaties with Spain and France. Things die down.

And this makes sense for stage four. A new ruler comes in, less violence.

In conclusion, the American Revolution doesn’t entirely fit the form of Crane Brinton’s Theory, but hey. No one is perfect.

So I hope you enjoyed another fun filled blog post

Read Ya Later

Rubes

Hello! I’ve returned from the blog-writers grave to write another post

This one is about a field trip we did, to Richmond, more specifically the Highway to Heaven. Now, the Highway to Heaven is a road in Richmond that pretty much has a lot of religious practice areas [eg. Mosques, Churches, Monasteries]. So we went a s a class to see a few of those places, as our unit is on Relegions.

Okay, a bit off topic, but why is it a highway to hell but a stairway to heaven? Who knows?

First stop on our trip: The Vedic Cultural Center, dedicated to Hunduism. That was really interesting, as when you first walk in, you get a picture of one of the Hindu gods. I’m not too sure which one.

So we had to take off our shoes to enter the upstairs area. That was thankfully the one day I decided to wear matching socks. So we went upstairs and into the prayer area. That was really cool, because the wall has a cloud-like design, and the Hinduism symbol in the Center of the main wall

So then we entered the main room. It was really cool, because they had these statues of some of the gods.

Hindus have over 300 gods. I feel bad for the guy who has to remember all the names.

So back to the main room.

Apparentaly the statues’ outfits are changed every seven days, where as the statue of the All Mother [is that her name? Or am I confusing her with Odin?] is changed every day. The day we came, most of the statues were in Orange:

But the All Mother [possibly not her name still] was wearing gold

The lady showing us around was very nice, and she taught us a bit of yoga, or the Lotus Position

I couldn’t do it! Maybe because I was wearing jeans, or maybe because I have the flexibility of a steel rod. Either one was an excuse enough for me to sit normally. So we learnt a bit about the Hindus. Did you know that even though they have so many gods, they believe that they are all a reflection of one god? I found that cool. They think that God came to earth in different forms at different times, and that your soul is a reflection of God.

We left, and I got a cool photo of the leaf arches outside:

Then we moved onto

Stop #2: the first Buddist Temple

Now this one was really cool, and probably my favourite temple to go into. It was right beside the Vedic Center, and even the outside was amazing. Then we got to walk in. We had to take out shoes off, again. We weren’t aloud to take pictures until the end, so I didn’t get any photos of the Monk that showed us around. He taught us the Story of Buddha.

He then told us about being a Monk, which involves letting go of everything you hold close to your heart. Sorta like the real world Jedi.

There were many small Buddhas on the wall, which he told us represented the medicine Buddha:

The cieling was really high, and there was a lot of gold in the room. Then we left. On the way out, I saw this quite interesting sign:

I don’t know what you’re tripping on if you think that’s how anyone trips. Anyways, we then went onto

Stop #3: The second Buddist Temple.

Disclaimer: I didn’t know we were aloud to take pictures until halfway through, so my pictures are minimal here.

This one was really large. We were welcomed in, and we given hot chocolate. I liked it already. Then we were told about a guy who prayed for 90 days or something crazy like that, with minimal food or water. He died at age 80. We then went to the main area, where Kate and Adam burned incense.

It was a sign of respect to the Gods. We then walked around the place like monks, with out hands at heart Center, and we chanted something in a language which I totally forgot.

We didn’t look that cool, unfortunately 🙁

But we then reached the prayer area, and I had to put down my camera so we could do what the monks do to pray. They go into position three times before starting, and then pray for up to 45 minutes whilst chanting. It’s really cool. Then we learnt a bit more about the guy who prayed for 90 years. We did some more prayers, and then went back to the entrance. We got some candy, and I got some strange sort of caramel thing with a really salty rock in the middle. Then we went to….

Stop #4: Nanaksar Gurdwara Gursikh Temple.

That’s a mouthful. Ironically, that’s what we got. We ate lunch at the Sikh temple, which I quite liked. We then went into the prayer room, where there was a lady reading poetry from the Sikh religious book. Fun fact: there’s someone who reads that book at all times, and my Dad’s coworker’s dad reads that book at their local temple. We weren’t aloud to take pictures there, but I got some pictures of the prayer room upstairs which they weren’t using:

We learnt about Sikhism, and then we were sent home, at 3:20. Luckily, Willa and I have choir until 6:00, so I still stayed at the school and didn’t miss my bus.

So that was our highway to heaven field trip! It was really interesting, and hey, we got to miss school. So, yeah!

Read ya later

Ruby

 

It’s been a while since I’ve posted! But I’m back, and better than ever. Not really.

So this post is about Worlview. Now, for those of you who don’t know, worlview is… *googles it* A comprehensive world view or worldview is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the entirety of the individual or society’s knowledge and point of view.

Pretty much it’s what your perspective on the world is. So we had to make a video, or an Explain Everything. It had to include animation, pictures, and, worst of all, voice overs.

Okay, so I absolutely HATE the sound of my voice on tape. So I procrastinated a lot before I had to do the voice over.

Yeah. But then it finally came to do the voice over, and I personally think that this entire video went pretty well.

Hooray for worldview. I think the hardest part about this was that we weren’t really given much direction. Mr. Hughes just said “here the app, and a few instructions on how to use it. Go”. So that was a bit tough for me, but I got around to it eventually. Since then we’ve worked a lot on religion, so look forward to that blog post soon!

Read ya later,

Ruby

I’m back baby! never starting off a post like that again. Anyways, this post is about this thing that we’ve worked on for the past few months, called Destination Imagination, or DI for short.

Now, you’re all wondering “What is this DI?”. Well it’s good you’re here because that’s literally the entire post.

So, to explain it first. DI is a wonderful tournament where kids from all around go into one of the 5 categories (Structual, Technical, Fine Arts, Science, and Improv) to compete to win at Globals, were you win like five grand or something crazy like that. Our class decided to do it, and we each chose a category. Surprisingly, no one chose improv.

Well, I decided to go into the Fine Arts category. For this, we had to write up a mystery story, involving three suspects, a Techinical Clue to help solve the mystery, and two team choice elements. A team choice element is something where the team shows off their skills and interests.

My group was pretty good. It had Tatum, Simon, Marcus, Willa, Angela and Myself. And together we successfully got together the basics:

Time Period: 1970’s

TechiClue: Polaroid photos

Team Choice Element 1: Vest, made by Willa

Teacm Choice Element 2: Manequin head, made by Willa

Detective: Sarah Sawset, played by Willa

Suspect 1: Joker, played by Ruby (hi!)

Suspect 2: DJ, played by Simon

Suspect 3: Bouncer, played by Marcus

Police Woman: Police, played by Tatum

Unfortunaly, Angela had diving in Pentiction on the day, so we had to do without her. So, everything was fine. We had the script down, we were practicing, it was all great.

Then,

Our TechniClue wasn’t technical enough! It got dramatic, but I’m not saying any names here. Let’s just say that someone got mad, someone cried and everyone else felt awkward. Yeah. But we fixed it, we changed our TechiClue to fingerprinting. Our costumes were great.

We killed the Preformance. But the appraisers gave us 133 out of 200. But that was only on our Arts challenge. Then we had the Instant Challenge

The Instant Challenge is where you are given a task and have to do it in under eight minutes. Unfortunately, I can’t actually talk about what happened in the room where we did it, as we have been sworn to secrecy.

Side note: I searched up ‘oath’ on google for an image for this, and I somehow managed to get to ‘dog swearing’. In which I found this:

Yeah

Anyways, we rocked the tournament. We got 100 out of 100 on our Instant Challenge. Yay! It was a full day, and it was great. Then came deciding who wanted to go to the next level, which was Provincials.

Not a single soul in my group wanted to go. But, let’s be clear here

So bad. But no one else in my group wanted to go, so I’m trying to witch groups. No news on that yet, but I’ll change this when I find out

Thats all for now

Read ya later

Ruby

Also known as The One About Salad!

Salad

Because it’s about Caesar

Caesar Salad

Okay, so I’m not funny. Anyways, we did a unit on good ol’ Julius Caesar, as you know from earlier blog posts. Clickety Click Click Here

So, we did a lot of expansion on that unit. A lot. We actually read through the entire play, on a fabulous app called SIB Caesar.

I just found out that SIB sounds for Shakespeare in Bits (I totally thought it was Shakespeare in Boots and my mind…)

He looks good in boots.

Willa: He should have been a drag queen. But only for shoes, because everyone dressed like a girl back then anyways.

I’m getting way off topic. The point is that we did a Caesar unit, and went through the entire play on the app Caesar in Boots. Bits.

For each act of the play {there were five acts in total} we had to write response questions, and do a paragraph. Which I totally did not leave until the last minute…

At the end of the unit, we had a performance to do. One of the scenes from the play. So of course, my group (Sam Scheewe (I think this is how you spell his name), Spencer, and Willa) chose the scene with death. Not the scene where Caesar gets stabbed. The one where Brutus kills himself.

So, we were fine. “Yeah. We can do this”. But then a bomb was dropped on us. We had to change the script to modern language and remake the entire scene to make it modern.

Yeah. We had to figure out a new setting, which was hard. So us, being us, decided “Hey! Let’s be gangsters”. Because I can be gangster.

We re-wrote out play, and re made the characters. The final script looks somewhat like this right here

 

Then we had to preform it. First time went okay. We practiced, we had our scripts, we were fine. Then came The Actual Preformance. Oh god. We would have done it in the theatre on the Friday that everyone else was ther, but no. Sam was away, so we did it first thing on Monday, when we weren’t prepared, in the classroom. It failed. So bad.

But over all I learnt a lot from this unit, about Shakespeare and Caeser, and the Romans. Well, that’s all for how

Read ya later,

Ruby

Plot Twist: This post isn’t about a project! It’s about our Science class today! We went down to beautiful Deep Cove to look at something called a King Tide.

A King Tide is pretty much the largest tide of the year. It’s so high, the people with beach front houses had water in their stairs leading to the beach:

Yeah. Sometimes it can be so extreme that it can cause floods! Luckily, ours wasn’t as extreme as the header image.

A few more pictures of it:

Thats right before we got on the dock. Artsy.

That’s some stairs, we saw a closer picture before

Jellyfish!

Okay not the best quality, but I almost dropped my iPad taking this. Appreciate it!

Okay, short post, but I guess that’s why it The Mini One About The King Tide

Read ya later alligators,

Ruby

So, the other day, we started a new unit. On *drum roll*

JULIUS CAESAR! So, we’re not only learning about the Shakespeare version of him, but also the actual Roman guy. Yeah. So the first part of our unit was to do something called a Body Biography.

What this is:

It’s pretty much where you trace out someone’s body, and put symbols important to that person’s life in certain places. For instance, I love food, so in my body biography, food would go on my heart.

But, unfortunately, we didn’t do me. We did some old dude called Octavius Caesar. Yeah. He was Julius’s heir, and was a really famous military dictator. Here’s a breakdown of what we put where.

Heart: Three Rings With Icicles.

This shows that he had three broken marriages. Two of them were divorces. But even though he got married  three times, his heart was cold and hungry for power.

Spine: Crown.

Normally, the spine represents someone’s backbone. And Octavuis’s backbone was his kingdom, or his empire.

Hand: Sword.

This shows that not only was he strong mentally, but also physically. How else would he have been a dictator?

Brain: Lightning Bolt.

Yes, we did purposefully put this on his forehead to reference Harry Potter. I’m a nerd. Anyways, this shows that he thought a lot about power, and gaining it.

Yeah. Body biographies! That’s all for this post

Read ya later alligators!

Ruby