Monthly Archives: October 2017

Scary Things

Greetings, earthlings. Commander Jason here. Today, I’m going to be talking about my favourite holiday, Halloween. But before we start, I want to make a request. If possible, I’d like you all to play spooky scary skeletons while you read. Does that sound OK? Alright. So sit down, buckle up, and prepare for a spoooooooky ride. Oh wait! I almost forgot. Here’s a special Halloween meme.

So, the thing is, this post isn’t something we all have to do. I’m just gonna write for you, my faithful readers, because I love Halloween. And also because I’m bored. So, without further ado, prepare to hear about my favourite time of the year, (sorry Christmas) Halloween.

So, first on the ol’ agenda is costumes. For Halloween, I am going to be everyone’s favourite pickle, Pickle Rick. If you do not know who that is, you’re living under a rock. Seriously. Watch Rick And Morty. My pickle rick costume is supposed to look like this.

Unfortunately, I’m not exactly the best at arts and crafts, so my costume is probably going to end up looking like this.

What are you going to be for Halloween? Oh man, I sound like the guy who plays the main character in a kid’s show. But seriously, feel free to leave a comment below telling me what you’re being for Halloween.

Next, let’s talk about decorations. My family and I do not put up decorations because there are basically no kids in my hood. Also, no one visits me. I’d ask you, the reader, to come over, but I really don’t feel comfortable sharing my address online.

Finally, let’s talk about the fuel of the fifth grader, candy. I like candy. You can probably tell. If you have read my about me page, you should know that my favourite candies are skittles and airheads. Unfortunately for me, those are two of the rarest candies that people hand out. Getting an airhead while trick or treating is about as rare as Emerson going one day without eating a muffin. Yeah. Think about that for a second. I’d hand out airheads and skittles is people actually trick or treated in my neighbourhood, but they don’t. Too bad. Also, feel free to comment your favourite type of candy in the comment section.

Alright. That wraps up my spooooky post. I hope you enjoyed this post. Make sure to comment down below your Halloween costume and your favourite candy for a chance to win a special Jason’s Special Halloween Prize Pack! Just kidding. You don’t actually get a prize pack. But if you comment, you will recieve a special, handwritten reply from yours truly. Alright. See you amigos next time.

Until Next Time,                                                                                                                                                 Jason Guan

AKA The Spooky Pickle

My Mindset And Me

Hello there kids and/or adults! It’s me. Your not-so-old pal Jason. I’m writing this post to inform you about our recent unit in Maker, the power of a Growth Mindset. Before we get started, here’s your meme of the day. Please enjoy.

Alrighty. Let’s get started. For those of you that do not know what a growth or fixed mindset is, you have much to learn. A growth mindset is, wait, let me back it up a bit. A mindset is how you think. What your thoughts are and how you see talent and skill and all that good stuff.

Someone with growth mindset is someone who sees talent as something you earn by working hard. They also never give up and always keep trying. Growth mindset people also see criticism as a tool to help them better their work.

On the other end of the scale are the fixed mindset people. People who see failure as setbacks rather than opportunities to improve. They believe that talent is something you are born with rather than something you work to achieve.

To learn about these things, we did various activities, watched some interesting videos, and did some reflecting. Some really helpful videos we watched were The Power Of Belief, a TedTalk by Eduardo Briceno, and Why You Need To Fail, an informative video by Derek Sivers. You can watch both of those down here. 👇👇👇

We also watched this wonderful video about Timo the Cat and his struggles with his hammock.

Ok. Now let’s talk about some assignments we did. First of all, we learned what a sketchnote is. It’s basically like the name suggests. They’re like regular notes, but in sketch form. We did some of those. You can see mine here.

I get it alright? My first one was bad. No need to yell at me in the comments. Ok. The app that I used for these wonderful creations was Paper 53. Paper 53 is a great app for making sketch notes, doodling, or drawing on pictures of your friends. Especially that last part 😉. Link to the app Here.

We also learned a lot about effort and giving 110%. We also learned that grit isn’t just another word for dirt. (It means effort and perseverence) One assignment that I’m pretty proud of is when we had to write a paragraph about someone famous who had a growth mindset. You can try to guess who in the comment section below. (Hint: He’s one of the G.O.A.T’s of basketball)

Ok. That should wrap that up. You can ask any questions or tell me any thoughts you have in the comment section along with your guesses. See ya next time! 👋

Until Next Time,                                                                                                                                                 Jason Guan

Frequent Shopper At JimBob’s White Shirt Emporium

Oh, what a trip!

What up folks. It’s Jason. This post is going to be about our wonderful trip to Oregon. AKA Rain County. Well, it actually rained once in Oregon, but it usually rains a lot in Oregon.

Alright now that all the memes are out of the way, let’s get the ball rolling and start. By the way, I also made a book. You can click/tap below to read it!

Let me start by saying Oregon was great. They take the new Grade 8’s every year and we always end up hearing about the horrors of one of my worst enemies, Rain. Luckily for us, it barely rained in Oregon. I’ll admit, it was pretty cramped in the bus sometimes, but we managed to bear through it. We also did some pretty fabulous things in Oregon. From ziplining, to boat riding, to indulging ourselves at the Golden Corral, which was this massive buffet we went to. There were some pretty memorable inside jokes too. *cough we eat tonight cough cough* We also had some great adventures at Wal-Mart, Costco, and Fred Meyer. Also, we may or may not have discovered a new species on the boat…

Yeah… No one’s really sure what THAT is.

Moving on. We had some really great food on the trip. From the amazing chicken at Nisa’s Thai to the hot roast turkey at Chalet. We also went to some amazing buffets. Izzy’s, Sweet Tomatoes, And Golden Corral, which, by the way, had a CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN.

What’s next, let me check…. Oh! The beautiful scenery. The scenery on our trip was (imagine me saying this in a snobby, stuck up accent) simply divine. But seriously, the views on our trip were dope. Here. Why don’t you see for yourself.

You see what I’m saying?

Alright, well that brings us to the end of this post. I hope you enjoyed hearing about our adventures as much as I did writing about them.

Until Next Time,                                                                                                                                                 Jason Guan

Not-So-World Renowned Oboe Player

The Advertising Project Of DOOM

Before we begin, please know that the DOOM part is a joke. The advertising project was actually pretty fun. Please don’t take that part seriously. Ok. Now that that part’s out of the way, onto the actual post!

Hello there. It’s Jason. Welcome to my first post ever. This post is going to be about the wonderful world of ADVERTISING!

Now, as some of you may or may not know, we recently finished our first unit, which was on advertising. During this unit, we interviewed some businesses and made some wonderful ads.

For our first business, we interviewed local Deep Cove Department Store, A’hoy. So, my group members and I walked down to Deep Cove and interviewed the nice people at A’hoy, who gave us some information for our ads. The product that they wanted to promote was their Herschel Studio Backpacks, which were only available at A’hoy. Here are my first, second, and third drafts.

As you can see, there are many improvements between my weird, confusing first draft and my better third draft. To achieve these results, I used feedback from my peers to improve these ads. The critique really helped point out the main flaws in my ads. I then used that to improve my ads. The main app that I used was Canva. Canva is a design app that I used to create my ads. I also used Photoshop Mix, which I used to crop my images. Something that I’ll probably do differently next time is get more specific with our questions to get a better mental image of what my ad will look like. We are currently writing A’hoy an e-mail with our ads included and hopefully they give us some helpful feedback.

After we had finished up our Deep Cove Business Ads, it was time to move on to the real thing. Our Oregon ads.

In order to figure out what businesses we were doing, we picked pieces of paper with business names written on them. Our first pick was American hunting store Cabela’s, while our second pick was the Tillamook Cheese Factory. Long story short, we got rejected. Twice. Now, you might be thinking, Jason, how did such a professional like you get rejected? Well, Tillamook said that their main marketing team was actually located in Portland, and not Tillamook. The marketing manager at Cabela’s said that she was occupied the day we were visiting. After being turned down twice, we were given a shining beacon of hope. High Life Adventures.

So, on October 1st, 2017, Jackson, Paisley, Anika and moi, (which is me in French), had a nice, long chat with Beau from High Life about the things they wanted to promote and any special requests that they had for the ads. We also showed them some first drafts of ads that we had created before hand. Beau then called in his manager, who gave us some ideas. The things that they were looking to promote were:

– The fact that their business is family owned.                                                                                                                   – The fact that there is a campfire outside so that you can drink beer by the campfire.                                                  – The zwing, which was this really dope zip line that we weren’t allowed to ride because we’re not adults.     – The 7th zipline in the tour, which was one that let you ride into the water.                                                     – The new bar and grill, which was what all of us chose to advertise.

After we got back from Oregon, we made some more ads. The thing was, we couldn’t make our ads because we didn’t have any pictures of the ziplining because of a computer error. (This was before we realized that we didn’t actually need pictures of ziplining to make ads for the bar and grill.) After we had gotten the photos, we made our ads. Why don’t you take a look at them?

As you can see, the improvements on these ads are very similar to my Deep Cove Ads. There’s a big difference between my first and last drafts. We are currently writing an e-mail to High Life too. I hope we get some good feedback. Once again, I used Canva and Photoshop Mix for my ads. This time, I not only got critiqued by my peers, but also by 10th graders. It’s a long story. I, once again, used the critique to improve my ads. One thing I would do differently is get a good picture of the bar and grill to use in my ad.

Alrighty. That about wraps things up for this post. I wrote all of the things I wanted to write about and, as always, did my best to make it interesting. I hope you are now informed about the wonderful world of advertising while learning some things about me.

Until next time,                                                                                                                                                   Yours truly, Jason Guan.

AKA J-Guan