Nation X: The Diary

Hey guys, welcome back to my blog. In humanities, we just started a new project. It was started with a blind launch with a simulation. We were placed into a society with different classes. Here is my character’s diary of the experiences I had:

This diary belongs to: Susan E.

If found, alert authorities, and they will know what to do with it.

October 31 (Day 1)

Today was an eventful day. The first thing that happened was me finding out that I’m in the nobility (group c.) This means I have many freedoms and many more dollars. I spent almost my whole paycheck on a lemonade to fuel my body for the day. I only had a dollar left, and I kept it safe to begin my day with the power that I have. Since I’m a part of the law enforcement, I have the ability to arrest people in the lower classes (group a and b.) I can arrest them for anything (or nothing,) and as long as the majority of group c or the king doesn’t disagree or doesn’t know, they can’t stop me. It’s not like I’m going to use that, though. Group b is thriving because they’re selling well at the shop, but group a is struggling. They make $1 per day, and the tax is $1 per day. Because my job also includes tax collecting, I chose to pay their tax for them for today. My life goal right now is to help them out and improve their quality of life. Currently, they don’t even have chairs to sit on! Today, I tried to talk to the noble King Luca about it, but he was too busy with other kingly duties. That was okay, and I decided to talk with him again tomorrow. For now, I’m getting ready to sleep. I feel content in what I’ve started today, and I’m excited to get back to work tomorrow.

November 1 (Day 2)

Today I did another good deed. I bought some food for some members of group a, and asked for donations for them from group b. Since group b has so much money, I collected donations for group a from them. I also gave the remainder of my money to group a at the end of the day, because they’re not very well off. Today also wasn’t super eventful, but the prices in the shop went up because there isn’t a lot of food to go around. There are mobility restrictions for group a, where they can only leave their territory to buy things from the shop, but it’s a bit of an issue because they don’t have enough money to buy things in the shop. So basically they’re trapped in their territory. Until we get the king to step in a bit, we’re kind of screwed. I’ve got to go off to sleep to feel refreshed for tomorrow.

November 3 (Day 4)

Yesterday, I completely slept through the day. I was just so tired. Today we found out about a disease sweeping our nation. This disease is highly contagious. We located traces of it in group a. Since no one has really been unlawful, we converted the jail into a temporary quarantine for the infected. So far, only 2 are infected. The two are Ronan and Kadin, and they’re both quarantining until we have a cure. The king is looking towards getting a cure, and decided that the uninfected members of group a will work on making a cure. Originally, I thought this was a good idea because they can make money from it. Looking back, though, it’s kind of a bad idea because group a shouldn’t have to be working long and hard hours just to help out their friends a little bit. A temporary cure got found, but just now we found out that it was a fraud and the disease has spread even more because we let the “cured” out of quarantine. I also got a gift for Kadin and Ronan to celebrate their perseverance through the disease. Other than that, nothing else really happened today. Tomorrow I will bring change and help group a get back on their feet. I’m really tired, but now I’m going to bed.

November 4 (Day 5)

Today, we got a special news bulletin about the disease. More are infected and today Kadin died. That is the least of the action, though. We found out nation Y, our neighbours, are on the rise and starting to attack our borders. The king and his court have received weapons, one of which is a very dangerous axe. I also just found out that they have had a cure for the disease for a while, but kept it from the rest of us, which killed one of the group a members in turn. I talked with the members of group a and b and we decided to assassinate the king and his court. A few minutes later my friend Owen, a fellow group c member, asked me if I wanted to kill the king and his court. I went up to them and told them I was there to kill them, while holding out my gun. I shot, but they all have very strong armour. I maimed Dylan, who was in our group but working for the king. They all told Owen to kill me to prove that he worked for them. The traitor shot me, and I collapsed, unconscious. I was almost dead, and they completely looted my body, but once they all left, I was able to crawl all the way to group a. I knew that they had medicine and I would have a higher chance of survival if I went to them. They told me that if I joined them, they would save me. I had no choice, but I thought it was a good idea anyways, so I agreed. The kind souls saved my lives. We received word from nation Y that they wanted us to join them. We were willing, but we had no way to get there without going through the king and his court, who would kill me on sight. Eventually, they came over to group a and killed my new friends, my saviours. I ran away and hid. Right now, I’m sitting in a little shack I built myself in the woods, far off from nation X, nation Y, and any other civilization. I’m on my own and I’m going to spend the rest of my days in peace, knowing that I’m safe in the woods using my survival skills.

Thank you for reading through my diary of nation X (renamed to Nation King Cool, which is a name I do not acknowledge because of the disgraced, dethroned, king)

-Susan

These Videos Aren’t All Vibrant

Hello and welcome back to my blog! Today I’m going to be writing about my most recent maker project: Vibrant Videos! Vibrant Videos was a project that we’ve been working on for a while, about, you guessed it, some vibrant videos. We also learned about setting goals.

The essential question to this project was “how can I use my video skills to tell a story?” You’ll be able to figure out how I answered this for myself over the course of this project through the rest of this blog post.

We started out this project by reading a book about setting goals. Within this book we did a few activities about ourselves, our goals, and our dreams.

One of the first main activities we did was a form called “what inspires me?” In it, we answered questions about our likes, dislikes, favourite things, etc. Then, the next day, we learned skill #1 in video making: clips. Clips is an app for video making that we had to use for this. In clips, you can import videos, film videos, import photos, add text and stickers, and so much more. Here is the video that I made about what inspires me, using my clips skills:

I did really well on this because I told a story and included different titles. I also drew a few images to help explain what I was saying, and as an extension, I explained not just the what, but the why, as well. 

Our next moviemaking assignment was a silent film. This silent film had to portray a “goal getters” story – a story about someone reaching a goal. Some people used one from their own life, while others, like my group, used a story that was in the book. The people in my group were Julia, Evangeline, and Owen. Here is our silent film:

I think we did well on this because we were able to tell the story without even speaking! We used clips to make this video as well, and aided the silent film with some music.

After this, we took a quick swerve in a different direction with this project. Because the exhibition for our humanities project (here’s my blog post on the Power of Geography,) we made different videos to be played at the exhibition. I was in the group for the fun video, which basically showed the highlights of our trip. The people in my group were Jackson, Keenan, Jasper, Cameron B, and Julia. Here’s the video:

After the exhibition, we got back on track with the project. The next assignment was actually not a video. Instead, it was a goal ladder, which is a ladder that shows the steps you must take to get to the top (your goal) on each rung. Here’s mine on getting a standing back tuck in gymnastics:

I’ve already completed the first step, and I made sure to time each step so I wouldn’t forget about my goal. I also included some rewards for myself to motivate myself to complete the goal.

Next, we had our very last video of the project: skill #3, planning and shooting. In this skill, we needed to learn how to make a storyboard and follow it. We made this video in a group, and my fellow group members were Silas and Ronan. The video was a tutorial, and the goal was to show one of these three topics: how to set goals, how to be a “goal getter,” and how to stay on track. We chose how to set goals. Here is our video:

After all that, we moved on to our last assignment, AKA this blog post. I’m very proud of my work in this project and I hope my work in maker continues to be this good all the way through to next year, and the year after that, and the year after that.

See you next time,

Susan