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​During the fourth quarter I really went all out on my stuff. I dabbed into a bit of "anime," some abstract paintings using water color paint, and even made some rings using copper wire and gems. I feel as though I really don't know what I like and so that is why i went about doing a bunch of different forms of art this quarter. 

For my first piece of art, i created a picture of Gohan who is from the show dragon ball z. The show was a big part of my childhood and so i wanted to draw something from it considering it was something that i liked a lot. I put a lot of effort into it and i think the final product came out to look really nice. 


For my second piece of work, I created a picture of yet another character from the tv show, only this time it was a different person. It was a bigger scale picture so it took longer to draw in terms of there being more space to cover, however there wasn't as much detail put into this piece compared to the other. 

For my third piece of work, I created pieces of water color paintings that were abstract. It took a lot of concentration and focus. I had to really think about the movements of the brush before i started. Like, what was I going to make the picture look like? How big? What kind of feel will there be behind it? It was pretty challenging but I came out with 3 pieces that I am proud of. 

I also completed other pieces that i didn't submit for grading. Such as the rings that were made out of copper wire with gems. 



Pieces of art will be uploaded tonight**

1.    Who you spoke with and why you chose that partner:

- SharedTalk; Miki

What did you learn about them? What did you learn from them?

He is my old friend, one of the people that I talked to on sharedtalk before. I know enough about him, such as how he learned English, and it was really through sharedtalk which is a fun fact, but also, he asked me to help him out a bit with a problem, and I did, but all I have from that conversation is a small ss, because interned decided to turn off for a bit.

2.    /How did this interaction help you move towards achieving your personal goals?

Again, he learned English on Sharedtalk, which is awesome, and really fits my goal of learning how others learn English.

3.    What specifically did you do well according to your goals/expectations? What specifically to you need to improve on?

I think that the best thing that I did was helping him out, which really felt nice, but as for my goals, figuring out that Ecuadorian people speak English and call white guys Gringo!!!!!

 

What specifically do you need to improve on? (Quote specific things you said or did and what you would have done or said if you could do it again)rc

I think I improved a lot overall, so I would say that our conversation was on a pretty high level.

For two blog posts I have talked about the problem. Illiteracy. However, this time, I am talking about the solution. What we can do to make this problem disappear. As my teacher calls it, this is the "Post for Change."

After my previous blog post I decided to email a woman I know named Monica Carnesi.  She is an author and illustrator who works at the Free Library of Philadelphia. I gained contact with her from a mutual friend named Marion, who also works at the free library. As I was emailing both of them I got some new information.

There is another program that helps with this problem of illiteracy. It's called R.E.A.D.  This program helps mostly with children who are struggling to learn these skills. They have trained dogs come in to sit with these children. The children the read out loud to the dogs. The purpose of this exercise is to give the children the confidence they need to read aloud as well as the practice to do it well.

I believe that change starts from the newest parts. In my case, the youngest generation. I found that kids are the ones most likely to change this pattern. That to stop the problem we have to stop it early on.

To help with this I went to a building called the Friends Welcome Center. The night before I had called the director of a part of this building called FCCC, (Friends Child Care Center). She invited me to come in one day after school and read to some of the younger kids. While I was there I could tell that the kids were excited about the book. They would point things out in the pictures, and shout out what they thought would happen next. It made me smile, to see all these kids so excited about books.

It's wonderful, and extremely easy to help the next generation to get excited about reading. If it's simply reading to a younger sibling or cousin. Or going as complicated as I did and going out to a preschool to join into story time. Everything helps.

To view my first blog post click here
To view my second bog post click here
To view my bibliography click here

This is the third and final segment of the three part blogging project my class was given for our final project of the year. In my first post I introduced my topic and gave information about it so that even those who know nothing about it could have an understanding of what I researched. The purpose of my second blog post was for me to express my opinion openly and in detail. 

This post is being called “the post for change” because we were assigned to create a piece of original content geared towards informing people about your topic and possibly changing their point of view at the same time. 

I decided that the best way for me to raise awareness was to make a video. In the video I interview four seniors at my school who are all 18 and registered to vote. I chose that demographic because the Pro-Choice movement’s involvement in this upcoming election could be a large deciding factor for them. I plan on showing kids that have just registered to vote this video to inform them about the candidates they will be voting for. Young people around the world are holding protests to fight for their rights.

I think this method of eliciting change is good. I think protesting for the causes you care for is an important part of democracy. Some people in the occupy protest were attempting to raise awareness of the Pro-Choice movement but in my opinion the protests were too unorganized and there wasn’t a clear enough ideal system to make a huge difference in our country. 

This topic is strongly rooted in opinion and theological beliefs but I believe that the government should not take away a person’s right to choose what to do with their body. If you think about it, our government has taken a long time to grant minorities their rights. It’s the land of the free yet freedom still hasn’t been legalized. Thank you.        

Here are my sources.          

For my 10% time project I focused on Alzheimer's and stem cells. 

This keynote is on Breast Cancer and the various treatments used to maintain and or cure it. It was created as my 10% time final project which was self-chosen due to my personal relationship with breast cancer. I aim to inform my audience on exactly what breast cancer is, how to look for it, and the process after finding out one has breast cancer.

Week 1 Abstract Emotion

I didn’t know what abstract emotion was until the week that we were supposed to do it. I’ve heard of the word abstract before this but I’ve never really knew what it meant. So this week would be my week of learning something knew. I found out that this project wasn’t so bad that I thought it was going to be.

The only hard part that I had with this project was deciding what to do. I wasn’t sure what to do so I looked at some examples. I then decided to do a picture of a face with mixed emotions through and around it. I made the face faded so it wouldn’t look like one. The colors I choose to do were red, purple, yellow, black, and blue. Red represented anger, purple represented pain, I made yellow into a lighting bolt that went with anger, black represented death, and blue represented sad. After that I smudged the colors together so it would blend.

​

​Week 2 Abstract Motion

I wasn’t sure how to do abstract motion because I never did it before. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out but after doing them, I found out it wasn’t that hard. I decided to do multiple pictures so I can get better at it. I did a drawing that was blue and it looks like the colors are moving like water. Another one is with many colors looking like it’s moving fast. Then there’s one that has colors smudged in together. I was proud of my work because I got a lot of work done then I expected and they turned out nice. And if I was to do this again I would make them more creative then the ones I made before.

​Week 3 Abstract 

I didn’t make a big deal out of this week because it was just abstract and I have did artwork that had to do with abstract in the last two weeks. So this week projects would be easier than the others. Then I decided to do multiple drawings.

There was two big drawing that I did, one with spirals and the other with curve lines. With these I made them with charcoal and with different colors, then faded it out to make it more abstract. Another one was with different colors that went in different directions.

​Week 4 Close Up Drawings

    With this week I decided drawing four close up pictures. I decided to do this because it makes you get every little detail in an object and it makes a person make more detailed drawings. And with every detail of something, you can make your drawing look realistic.

            There was one drawing that I spent almost all of my time on this week and it was a close up drawing of my laptop. With this drawing I got every detail of the computer even the windows that was open on the screen. The rest of my time went to the three birds I drew, which are the blue jay, the sparrow, and the cardinal. I decided to draw these birds because I feel as thought they are cute and I like looking at them fly around and look for food.

            Throughout this week, the hardest drawing that I did was the computer because it was difficult trying to get the correct number of keys on the computer and trying the laptop to look the right way. The easiest drawing was the cardinal because it didn’t that much detail as all the other ones did.

​Week 5 Close Up Drawings Pt 2

    For this week I decided to do some more close-up drawings because I feel as though I can still do better with drawing objects up close. There are also some things that I drew that were landscape and one I did electronically.

            I drew three pictures close-up and they are a bird and a mask. The last picture I drew was of a cup of cider with a bottle of sparkling cider and cherries next to it. With this picture I drew a table and two chairs in the background so it wouldn’t look like the cup, bottle, and cherries were floating in mid air. With the bird, I decided to draw it from the previous week when I few a couple of birds before. When I was drawing it, I wanted to draw a bird that I’ve never seen before. I decided to draw the mask because I didn’t know what else to draw and also that’s my favorite mask. There was a picture that I drew with pyramids and I got this idea when I was looking at TV and someone was talking about Egypt. Then I thought it would be cool to draw somewhere in Egypt so I looked up some pyramids and decided to do pyramids. And lastly, I wanted to make a make something that looked like a poster so I took a couple of my aunt prom pictures and made a poster out of them but first I made all the pictures look black and white.

            At the beginning of this week I had artist block, which is when you can’t find and don’t know what to draw. But to get over this, I asked a few of my friends to give me ideas that I could do and this is how I got what I did this week.

​Week 6 Landscape

    I was a little nervous about doing landscape at first but then I just decided to o it anyway because I wanted to get better at it. I wasn’t sure what type of landscape I wanted to do so I decided to get some ideas from Google.

            I decided to do two landscape drawings because one of them took a lot of time to do. The first one I drew was one that looked like a grass field with a pond in the middle and mountains in the back. Another drawing was a ocean with a city in the background while water is splashing onto rocks.

I wish I could move to Florida and leave Philly. If I were to live in Florida, I could be tan all the time and wear shorts and go swimming everyday. I wish I could make everyday summer. I would be happy all the time. I wish I could sing well because there’s times when I just want to belt out but I want it sound well. I wish I was rich so that way I could buy anything and everything I wanted and never have to worry about running out of money. I wish I could meet any famous person I wanted and be friends with them. I wish I could bring my great grandma back to life. I wish I could bring back all my family from the dead especially the ones who I was to young to realize who they were when I was little and just have one more conversation with them. I wish I could eat everything and never have to worry about calories!

“This past summer my friend”

 

This past summer my friend Briana and I have become really close. I consider her my little sister because we’re only months apart! We practically live over each others houses we go back and forth every weekend and she comes over my house every Wednesday, in the winter. In the summer it’s a whole different story its sleepovers every night, beach everyday and boardwalk every night together. If her mom is going back to Philly she stays with me. The funny thing is no matter how much time we spend together we never get annoyed with each other. All we do is laugh until we cry and our stomachs hurt. I can tell her anything and it goes for her too. We never will judge each other no matter what the situation is. She will always give me the best advice does not matter what the topic is. If I were to call her at three o'clock in the morning she would talk me through what ever I was going through. I would be so lost without her. She knows everything about me and I know everything about her. She’s not my best friend, she’s part of my family. 

One quote that I really agreed with was about how he is better at doing everything when he has feelings under control. This immediately made me think of every single time I get angry and start screaming. I do get mad at the most pointless things and I should learn to brush them off and not let the little things bug me. But even though that’s really hard to do I need to take Ghadi’s advice and not get so angry because more things will get solved when you can talk them out like human beings and not like animals. Also when I shout there’s so many feelings going through my body I find myself stuttering and then I cant even get my point out. Not only do I stutter but also when I walk away from the person sometimes I’m really shaky and I cry. Thinking about this all right now I realize how dumb it is to become so heated and it’s a waste of energy. Life is to short to be anything but happy.

Hey everyone it’s Raekwon again and I’m bring you my final blog post called post for change. Thanks for reading my blog posts and I hope they touched you in someway or form. If you are ready my post for the 1st time I will summarize my last two blog posts but here are the links to them 1 and 2 if you missed them. Ok so my first post was info on my topic Government Spending on Prisoners vs. Students. Some things I covered were the spending and alternatives we could do to prevent how much the Gov. spends on prisoners costing taxpayers more money. I talked on the statistics and other graphs on the topic. In my second post I talked about my opinion on how I feel about the spending.

I also touched on some info I find on private prisons. I talked about my ideas and how I think we can fix this problem that is going on. All right now that that is out the way, I want to talk about this post for change. I’m going to tell you what I’ve done to make something happen. So far I’ve asked some adults if they could address the town hall when they have those meetings and bring this topic up or if they could talk to government officials for me. What’s left to do is see if change will happen. If they consider making a change then that’s a huge step forward that they even considered the idea. 

 Now we were suppose to make our own piece of original content which I chose on make to make a poster with prisoners and students on it telling people to make the choice on who they would rather support which I’m hoping people support kids who could create a better future for us and help the economy. I also made little cards with facts on it about the topic to help raise awareness. Now I would like to take this time to acknowledge everyone that helped me in this process, which includes the following people: Mrs. Dunn, Julia Boyer, My Dad, My Mom and Science Leadership Academy school.

 

This is my Bibliography

 

Hello people of earth!!! My name is Betty and this is my last blog post on STDs Or STIs (if you prefer). If you click here you’ll see my first blog post on this issue which talks about why I’m discussing and interested in this topic and some information on it. If you click here you’ll see my second blog post on this which is mainly about more new information that I found out about this topic and graphics that show you more about the risks of it.

  But even with all of this the one question that most certainly needs to be answered is What has been done about with and What can we do today to make it better? 

From what I know to raise the awareness of this issue in each school in Philadelphia there is the health class that teaches the  about the causes and effects of STD, HIVs, and AIDs and it is mostly required that every student in the current school must take this class. But as I have researched about this and lately it says in this article that was posted this year on April 16 that lately schools have made little progress in teaching students about these issues. Which I am very disappointed in. I have just recently learned that April was STD awareness month. It says that it was made to call to the attention of young teens about the impact that STDs or STIs can have on you and there are some people that campaigning to raise the knowing knowledge of STDs and the importance of having safe sex. 

In making a stand and a change I made a collage and two poems that I will print out and post around my school and as my teachers politely if I can hang it up in their rooms. The collage are for the ones that are more images that speaks to them and the poem is for the poem who feel that words are what has more impact and power and will actually read it.

I would like to acknowledge my close friend Yourcenar Destin with the collage and for reviewing my poems.

For more Information on my resources please click here.

 

In these pictures the term Y.O.L.O is a youth slang word in a song by an artist named Drake referring to the saying "You Only Live Once". As you can see within the picture many teens take it the wrong way and end up making a big mistake that can change their life forever.

Please excuse the language within this for it doesn't matter what really matters is the meat and message behind it.

I made collage to reach out an explain the impact STDs can have on a young persons life thought pictures for people who are more about visuals than words.

​Here is two poems. The first poem is what you can easily turn into a song if you like. It tells about the effects and STD can have too. The second one goes into more of a deep emotional term in which STDs take.
Its Called ...

"That one night"

that one night

who knew it could bring such a fright

at the time it felt so nice , so fun

now i have rashes all over my buns  

STD aint got nothing on me , 

STI I have to say goodbye , 

because it happened to my ex

I surly wont be the next

so you say wanna live YOLO  , 

the next place you'll go is a doctors office for herpes oooo 

I hope you take this seriously 

because STDs are a pernicious mystery

Be careful of who your dealing with

for it is like taking the risk of tipping off a cliff

before you get yourself into a mess , 

go to the doctors office and take an STD test 

"It was just for fun"

It was just for fun
nothing wrong
at least that was what i thought
he said he loved me and that i could trust him not matter what
am i Believed him
so Slowly i fell
i fell
down hard
so deep into a pit of darkness
I was so blinded by his sweet words of empty nothingness
i didn't pay attention to where i was falling too
After it was done
After we had sex
I convinced myself it was alright
everything was fine
I used a condom
or so I thought
Something in me told me it was wrong
but i didn't listen
But  just in case i went out
and bought a pregnancy test
And to my failure i was with child
i went to the doctor to see what i could do
and because of my stupidity
I also carried an STD
And because of me
My Baby
Will Have to Suffer with me

I buried my head in my face

Silently crying
 “Oh Lord Save Me”

 

 

When students search for math help on google, they can only search by the topic they want help with. Content varies widely, and students have to waste time trying to find types of content that work for the way they learn best. For my capstone, I wanted to design a website that would make this process easier. At first, I considered making content myself, or crowd-sourcing the creation of new content – all organized by learning style as well as by topic. I realized, however, that I could be far more effective by organizing the math help content that already exists online. I designed the site and learned how to write code so that I could build the site. I began the process of indexing content from a variety of math help websites, such as Khan Academy and Purplemath. Although I do not have a polished and fully functional website to turn in for my capstone, I will continue to work on the site over the summer and possibly the next few years. I believe that my capstone could turn into a useful and popular site for any and all math students.

Take a look at the site here!

This blog is last in a series of three that discussed and explored the ethics and judicial standings of copyright infringement, namely, internet piracy. In my last two blogs, I gained a knowledge of the topic and did some investigations of my own. Piracy and You is mainly about the acts SOPA, PIPA, and CISPA. Internet Piracy and Morality is about how to make the decision yourself and about the lack of information given to the public. Doing this research has exposed me to a wide array of opinions, bills, laws, and movements. But are these different acts making a change? And if so, in which direction? The problem is awareness. People need to know, and we need to be the ones who tell them.

This piece of original content is an example of how a question or statement can invoke thought in a person. The goal of this poster is to make the viewer think about piracy in a new light. It allows them to take a step back and question what they are told. I think that piracy is a decision. It is up to the pirate to decide if they are breaking their own moral standing. With this poster I am getting the word out, spreading the knowledge and asking each viewer to look inside themselves and think about their actions or standpoint.

I conducted my own research which gave me interesting results to work with. Many who were surveyed admitted that they or someone they knew had committed internet piracy and were against censorship laws, while another large portion of these people were severely uninformed and had no clues as to the specifics of the topic. This shows us something. There is always a need for information and learning in our communities. We need to be the ones to teach and inform the peoples of our communities about this diverse topic. The way to go about doing this is to talk to the people we work with, play with, and live with in order to spread the word.

This picture pretty much sums up my opinion on piracy. I believe that it is a crime, but a much lesser one, and deserving of much less punishment. While I'll admit that copyright infringement holds much weight in the way of theft for some, for me it does not. But as always, the decision is up to you. You decide how you will live your life, and don't let anyone take that away from you. This is Gabriel Musselman. I hope you have found my blogs both thoughtful and intriguing, and I hope to  bring my opinions to the world at other times and in other ways. Thank you.

 

I think that finding your voice comes from living life and see things differently. Everyone has a story and every story gets told.  I feel like finding your voice is saying what you feel and saying what you know. And when you find your voice you can do that. 

I want to write about life and how nothing goes as planned. How a tool for learning turns into your worst nightmare. I want to write about me. And how no matter what great feats I get to I give myself no credit. No matter what feats or falls. I want to write about writing and how long it takes. How it cramps my hand and opens my eyes. How it all ways knows the right words. It lets me shed my pain. I wan to write about you. And how I never thought I deserved you and how you are to good for me. I want to write about the ocean and how I have missed it. How being in the vast body of water makes me feel but you never have a pen when you’re in the moment. I want to write moments and how they never last. 

The sun is up. Its warm but the wind is blowing part me the colors of yellow, orange, and brown dancing through my mind as I sit here. It’s as interpretive dance. The colors are dancers and they are chasing the red-hot sun blue ocean and yellow lemonade away bring the color of baked leafs and sawn costumes. I watched as the wind directed around me. One step two step three step four. They all seemed to go along with flow and the wind carried all their troubles. Wondering aimlessly around, looking for a new journey. The song stuck in my mind. It didn’t have lyrics but a melody for ballerinas, peaceful, delicate, and beautiful. The sun inform of haze that surrounded orange, brown and red leaves. Such wonderful colors that comes once a year. It’s so much more beautiful then the crystals of snow, because these colors aren’t just on the floor but every everywhere. Fall is very beautiful and that is what I love. 

How do Ibo gender roles compare to gender roles in our society

-Woman has a say in discussions

-Women can work

-Women are considered impatient

-Women are responsible for themselves

-Women are more respected

-Women are not sold off to men

-Women don’t have to take care of men

-Women are independent

 

 

Finding your voice is where you don’t care about anyone opinions and just say what you honestly feel or think

 

-Honestly telling your story/speaking honestly

-Realize who you are

-Finding peace with oneself

-Happy place

-Learning to express

-Not caring about other people thoughts

-Not being taken advantage of

 

Janie finds her voice when she loses her husband. She doesn’t’ have a man physically abusing her anytime she wants to speak her mind. No one in the world to tell her if she is wrong or right. She finally learns to think and love herself for who she is. But losing her husband was the best and worst time of her life. But she was taught one lesson throughout all losses, She need to love herself before any man loves her. 

I want to write about food…

 Food. Food is awesome. Food is good. Food helps you live. Food is beneficial to your health and life overall. Food makes you happy. Food is your best friend but also you’re worst. Food is so good and can make you so happy. Food just can lift up your sprits and brings anyone and everyone joy. Food is your best friend when no one else is there. Food will never turn its back on you.

 

After Simon Death…

-Simon dead

-One less person in the group

-They still think the Beasty is there

-They are murders but they try to justify what they did.

-Jack steals Piggy glasses

-Groups are divided

​Above is the endoscope neurosurgeons use in the Endoscopic treatments. 

The fact of the matter is is that Hydrocephalus IS curable...with the right procedure. There are usually two options when it comes to surgery and treatment of the infants in sub-Saharan Africa. Endoscopic is the first option. Endoscopic is when a camera is inserted into an incision at the most swollen part of the head. Then as the endoscope travels deeper and deeper, the doctor will slowly puncture a hole in the chambers that are holding the water to drain the fluid naturally. If the endoscopic procedure fails, then the neurosurgeon moves onto a move traditional treatment of placing in a catheter from the head to the abdomen to drain the "water" in the brain.

Both procedures are very tedious. But multiple studies have shown that the endoscopic treatment, performed in both developed and developing countries, have a lower success rate in developing countries. There are many variables to why this maybe. What is thought to be the leading cause is neonatal infections. This is also the leading cause of Hydrocephalus itself. 

In the next blog, action is going to be taken. 

Now read Blog #3!
Bibliography if needed.