Music has been my passion for as long as I remember, however, it didn’t take me long to learn that I needed to work towards a more practical goal. All my life, I have struggled with deciding whether to pursue my passion or settle for something stable that will still satisfy me. This battle only worsened when I got to high school, as I found myself frequently wondering if I’m made the right choice in schools or was going on the right path. This continued until half-way through my junior year, when I had a meeting with the college counselor, with whom I shared some of these concerns. She gave me this idea of producing an EP and really encouraged me to do it. I’ve been working towards it ever since. I also wanted to be sure that music was something I could actually do for the rest of my life, not just a silly passion that would be ruined if I had to spend an enormous amount of time and effort on it. So I looked for a producer and locked down a deal as soon as I could. Some things went really right, and a lot of them went left. However, this project has taught me a lot about my strengths and weaknesses. Most importantly, it’s given me a little more confidence in my choice of career. Don’t get me wrong, I know I have a long way to go, but it feels good to have finally taken my first step in the right direction. Bibliography: "Searching Forproduce My Music?" Produce My Music with World-class Musicians - Online Recording Studio. Accessed May 24, 2019. https://studiopros.com/music-production.php?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=WabHub - Musicians&utm_term=produce my music&utm_content=producer musician. At first, I looked for actual music companies to hire a producer. This website allowed me to contact professional producers and ask them questions about the process and pricing. This helped me gain a little more insight on the direction I wanted to head in for the album. Google Search. Accessed May 24, 2019. https://www.google.com/search?q=how to write songs&oq=how to write songs&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.9076j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8. I thought a good place to start with songwriting would be to research techniques. I watched Youtube videos and read a plethora of how-to articles. These resources made the songwriting process a little faster and a lot less stressful, as well as provided tips and tricks that helped me get through writer’s block. "Produce a Track From Start To Finish - The Ultimate Guide." MusicTech. April 03, 2019. Accessed May 24, 2019. https://www.musictech.net/guides/essential-guide/produce-a-track/. Part of my goal was to gain more knowledge about the components and necesseties of composing/producing. I also need to learn more so that I could communicate more efficiently with my producer about what I wanted from him during session. This site took me through a detailed step-by-step run down of the steps you taken to make a song and how you go should go about navigating the process. "Web Player: Music for Everyone." Spotify. Accessed May 24, 2019. https://open.spotify.com/browse/featured. Spotify was my immediate go to whenever I was stuck on anything at any point during this project. More often than not, when I would listen to music I would note the different elements of the track that I heard. This helped get the juices flowing when I needed to make my tracks sound fuller but I had only created a guitar riff or bass line. "Meet Google Drive – One Place for All Your Files." Google. Accessed May 24, 2019. https://drive.google.com/drive/u/2/. Google Drive held many components of this project during its creation. I had a song doc that I used to keep a sort of song journal that I could update and share with my producer so he could get a feel for the kind of sound I was going for. I also kept all the draft track files and demos on a separate doc also accessible to my producer as well as my mentors. It made updates and communication easier as well as eliminated trivial recaps that waste valuable session and meeting time. Rolka, Jeff. "Jeff Rolka." YouTube. Accessed May 24, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/user/jtrolka. Since I was the recording artist on my EP tracks, I had to start acting like it. This meant practice, practice, practice as much as my schedule would allow. This channel was introduced to me by my vocal teacher and I practiced about 3 different exercises about 3-4 times a week. "The World's Favorite Online Thesaurus!" Thesaurus.com. Accessed May 24, 2019. https://www.thesaurus.com/. This source also proved to be a major help during the songwriting process. There were many instances in which I couldn’t think of the right word, needed to a similar word with more syllables to fill out the verse, etc. In any case, a thesaurus was necessary to ensure that I delivered the right message using the right words with the right connotation. "Song Lyrics & Knowledge." Genius. Accessed May 24, 2019. https://genius.com/.

I believe that high-school is a place of constant growth, no matter the grade, it is still a place of daily growth. I want people to realize that change is a completely normal and a human thing to go through. I want students to realize that high-school is not a place that is against you, but working with you, side by side, you just have to figure out how to work and balance things out. For my project, I wanted to invest my time on something that I felt would benefit high-schoolers, or the SLA community specifically. With this in mind, I came up with the idea to create a somewhat reminder of how important high-school is, and how to utilize your time in high-school. Also to remind high-schoolers that this is a place of development, that not everything will go as planned. I wanted to create something that would benefit SLA high-schoolers when advice is needed. I conducted interviews from a person in each grade, asking them a variety of questions that I believed would be useful to hear as a response. I did this hoping it would give advice to those in every grade as well as help them get through high-school a little better. I also included a bunch of pictures that were taken throughout the 2018-2019 school year to showcase this year at SLA and what high-school looks like in pictures.

My Tribute To Dance Documentary: https://youtu.be/oA4zObbmqlY My capstone process came along pretty slowly, I spent a lot of the time trying to figure out every detail that I wanted to come out of my dance documentary. I found that even spending a few minutes looking through what I had so far, it brought me to my final product. I ran my ideas through friends and teachers about what my focus on the documentary be. After brainstorming, I knew that I wanted the focus of the documentary to be about my experience. Ultimately, I wanted to make my whole documentary a tribute, through home videos, photos, and videos. Connecting that with how I can take steps to revisit the feeling I felt when dancing, and that taking small steps makes all the difference. My final product is called “My Tribute To Dance Documentary”, in this documentary I told my story, I collaborated with my peers as well as mentors outside of school. The layout of the documentary was to tell my story in chapters, in each chapter I discuss what dance meant to me during that time, as a child, a preteen, and teenager/young adult. All of the segments came together to form one main idea, to highlight my journey of rediscovering dance. I used to be super close minded in regards to dance, and how I would never be able to regain that part of me again. Through this process, I found out that I could. Bibliography: "A Dancer's Brain Develops in a Unique Way." University of Helsinki. May 03, 2018. Accessed January 24, 2019. https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/health/a-dancers-brain-develops-in-a-unique-way Adding onto one of the sources that I wanted to incorporate into my capstone addressing scientific studies involving dance. Using the research about how dancing also affects a dancer’s brain because there are a lot of ways that I never really thought about when it came to dance, I felt invigorated when I was dancing. And I felt like I wanted to make sure that I could explain how important dance is not only as something that aspiring dancers want to learn, but also the healthy effects of it. This is an important knowledgeable section of the capstone that I would need to be able to provide the website that I will create with the information that is provided. "Dancing and the Brain." Sugar and the Brain | Department of Neurobiology. Accessed January 24, 2019. http://neuro.hms.harvard.edu/harvard-mahoney-neuroscience-institute/brain-newsletter/and-brain-series/dancing-and-brain Personally, I felt like I wanted to incorporate the mental and physical benefits of dance in the terms with my personal experience. I haven’t fully done research on the effects of dance on mental health because I’ve always been so sure that I fully believe that my mental health and attitude about life is a huge improvement for me. This will provide my capstone with a knowledgeable aspect that I connect to. I selected this source because there is an in depth scientific breakdown that I relate and agree with. I think it was just interesting to read more and write about the mental effects of the brain when it comes to dance and the stimulating portions of the brain in relation to dance. Daniellecleary Follow. "Features of Documentaries." LinkedIn SlideShare. July 11, 2012. Accessed January 25, 2019. https://www.slideshare.net/daniellecleary/features-of-documentaries This source provides information about the elements of documentaries and about the aspects of documentaries that work well and produces a documentary with elements that captures the audience’s attention as well as conveying my message about dance being a core part of the person I was and am today. Like elements about interviews, using the research from this source to identify how the flow of the dialogue would look and be. Also through this source, being strategic with lighting and the mood of the video. I also didn’t understand the dramatisation to be apart of the documentary, and through this source, I will use the sense of drama to portray the dialogue or the voiceover that will be playing as the video clips pass. Dise, Justin. "Filmmaking 101: Camera Shot Types." About B&H | B&H Photo Video. July 12, 2016. Accessed January 25, 2019. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/video/tips-and-solutions/filmmaking-101-camera-shot-types I selected this source because although I do have some basics on recording videos and editing them, a documentary is something that is more complex and different than other videos that I’ve worked on. I assume that there are similar shots that I could use in the documentary that I’ve used for other videos that I have recorded and edited, but I wanted to identify and narrow down a shot list that would fit the tone and mood of a documentary, a tribute to dance. Through this source, I learned more about using an extreme long shot to establish the setting that the video will be. And using it in a way that’ll match my voiceover. I also learned through this source to use a bunch of medium shots that are all varied in different ways. "DWMFAM Student Stories: I Dance And All My Bad Energy Is Released." Dance With Me Studios. February 01, 2017. Accessed January 25, 2019. https://dancewithmeusa.com/dwmfam-stories-barbara-paskoff/ In order to create questions that I would want to ask dance partners and teachers I wanted to use this source to understand other dancers’ perspectives and ask them questions that are nongeneric. There are a lot of compelling stories that I read about in this source and the different ways that dance has impacted these dancers. And it’s also just really interesting, personally, to read about other dancers’ experiences because as much as there will be some similarities to my experience compared to others, there are a lot of differences that I want to capture in my documentary. Applying these personal stories to the creation of the questions for other dancers. Lepard, Chase. "5 Crucial Web Design Tips for a Professional Site." Free Website Builder. October 08, 2018. Accessed January 25, 2019. https://www.wix.com/blog/2017/10/5-design-tips-for-a-professional-site/ I selected this source because as one of my end product of this capstone, I will be creating a website using that program and taking tips and advice that makes a good website design. This is an important portion of my capstone because throughout this whole process, everything that I will be working on will be designed and perfected because not only is it something that I love to do, but it’s just also the kind of student I am. This source will be helpful in inspiring designs that I want to set the tone and mood of the documentary as well as the website colors and the font types and sizes. All in all, using this source as an outlet for my website outlet. Modero Dance. Accessed January 25, 2019. http://moderodance.com/ The website to the old dance company that I used to be apart, as well as the company that my old dance teacher created. This source will help for me to generate some questions that I will ask my old dance teacher when I interview her as well as when I record some of her classes. Reflecting back to my experience as a student dancer in her class and wondering if there are any changes since the last time I danced with them. The mission statement on the website gave me insight on the creation of the shots and questions that I want to ask my dance teacher. This is especially helpful because although I was apart of this dance company and I didn’t even know the details of the mission of the company, it was always just something I knew I loved and didn’t really understand or know the personal impact that it was on my dance teacher. "Koresh Dance Company." Koresh Dance Company. Accessed January 25, 2019. https://www.koreshdance.org/. Information that I will mention in my documentary discussing about the different mission of dance companies to reference a point that I will make. To emphasize my point being that dance means something different to everyone, and that through telling my story about dance is different from the others. To possibly allow for the audience to interpret that dance is such a wide range occupation, interest, hobby, etc. I also feel like it’s important to reference the different dance companies and incorporate the whole dance community into my documentary. "New Research on Memory From Psychological Science." Association for Psychological Science. Accessed January 25, 2019. https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/new-research-on-memory-from-ps chological-science-2.html One thing about something that I remembered about dance, was that it took a lot of memory and that was something that I was always proud of about myself, and I wanted to find a source that deals with the explanation about memory. Reflecting on my years of dance in middle school, I had the best memory when it came to dance as well as academically and socially. But once high school came around, I lost track of dance and I lost finding the strength to memorize things. This source is useful because it provides a better understanding on my health in the terms of memory and having my questions answered about how dance involves memory “The History of Balinese Dance.” Tempo English, TEMPO.CO, 19 Feb. 2014, https://en.tempo.co/read/555872/the-history-of-balinese-dance This source provides information about the rich history of Indonesian dance and why it was a history that I heavily enjoyed and loved to dance to, a majority of my middle school career. It was a culture that was so unknown to me but yet once I tried to learn more about it through dance, I was just so engulfed in it, I was obsessed with dance in general, but it wasn’t Indonesian dance, it was a completely different style. But it was still something that caught my eye and remained a part of me for almost 6 years, even know if I stopped dancing with them. "UNESCO - Three Genres of Traditional Dance in Bali." Link to the Intangible Cultural Heritage Website. Accessed January 24, 2019 https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/three-genres-of-traditional-dance-in-bali-00617 More information about Indonesian dance, and the different symbols that are depicted within the moves and postures that are within this culture. ---- could use this to take pictures of these moves--- or even take my own pictures of me doing these moves to be apart of the photo series --- showing moves and the symbols. Showing how intricate dance is and how important it is to have in everyone’s life and a reason why I love it so much. Almost, using the information to convince any reader or audience that dance is an important thing to understand and possibly do. And dance is far more than just how society views it now, the way dance is portrayed nowadays versus how it used to be is misleading and unfair

My capstone was making ¨The Asian Cultures Club.¨ My Inquiry question was ¨How can I bring/spread awareness of asian cultures and customs to the SLA community?¨ By asking this question I had to ask myself was why? I felt that we learn about so many other cultures and being in such a diverse school that's good, but we never hear anything about asian culture and we don´t know much about it to celebrate it like the other cultures. With that I made flyers to start my club and I told a people about it. I got a lot of advise on how to properly hold a meeting and with that I made a presentation for the first club. We talked about goals for the club, introduced ourselves, and what they each want to get from the club. We came to the conclusion of meeting every two weeks to talk about a different place and culture in Asia. We faced some difficulties with the original name in which we had to have another meeting soon after the first. The original name was Asian Alliance, but people took offense therefore I took it into consideration, came together with my club and changed the name. The last couple of weeks after learning about the different cultures we wanted to do a visual representation of what we learned. We decided to do a mural associated to all of the things and some that were related to asian culture. We also decided to put up a map of Asia to show people all of the places people miss out on that should be represented. We also put up each member that played a role and why they felt it was impactful to learn about asian culture and if they felt asian culture was represented in SLA. Lastly, There is a part of the wall with different facts about many different cultures in Asia. "Culture In Thailand - Reach To Teach". 2019. Reach To Teach. Accessed January 25 2019. https://www.reachtoteachrecruiting.com/guides/thailand/culture-in-thailand/. This source holds information on the background and culture of Thailand and the people that live there. I decided to use this as a source because the first place and culture we are going to explore is thailand and this would be very useful for research to present. One limitation of this source would be that it doesn’t go into full detail on everything about thailand such as all of the history and background, but mostly talks about the culture. Guide, Thailand, and Thailand Guide. 2019. "Thailand - Thai Language, Culture, Customs And Etiquette". Commisceo-Global.Com. Accessed January 25 2019. https://www.commisceo-global.com/resources/country-guides/thailand-guide. This source holds information also on thailand. It goes a little more into the customs of the people and the social economics and the makeup of thailand. This source talks about the language and the time zone and the different types of foods. I found this source useful because it tells more of what I would like to know and teach to my club that I think they would enjoy learning about. Asia, 12Go. 2019. "Culture Of Cambodia – Main Values, Religion, Traditions". 12Go.Asia. Accessed January 25 2019. https://12go.asia/en/cambodia/culture. This source focuses on the culture of Cambodia and their values. It talks about their family traditions and their religious beliefs. Cambodians have very strong family ties, commitment is a word they will heavily associate with family. They have many temples for religious beliefs and for praying. Art and architecture is a big thing in Cambodia where they have a lot of tall and distinct buildings. 2019. Ddceutkal.Ac.In. Accessed January 25 2019. http://ddceutkal.ac.in/Syllabus/MA_history/paper-8.pdf. After reviewing this source I learned more about indian culture, history and heritage. I found this source useful because there was a lot of information I can use for my club when our focus point is india. A lot of people don’t think of india when they think of asian culture. Therefore, I found this source very helpful and unique. This source covers many things such as the geographics of indian culture and characteristics. 2019. Polpemjepangsmjhiugm2015.Files.Wordpress.Com. Accessed January 25 2019. https://polpemjepangsmjhiugm2015.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/yoshio_sugimoto-an-introduction-to-japanese-society.pdf. This source is a book and holds information on japan's society and social sciences. It talks about the social class and diversity and unity of the people that live there. It also talks about the minorities and ethnicities of japan. These are all very important topics to talk about when trying to understand where japan stands and present day issues. This source lacks information on the cultural aspect of japan and focuses more on the people rather than the culture and customs of japan itself. "Chinese Culture, Tradition, And Customs — Penn State University And Peking University". 2019. Elements.Science.Psu.Edu. Accessed January 25 2019. http://elements.science.psu.edu/psu-pku/student-resources/resources-for-penn-state-students/chinese-culture-tradition-and-customs. After reviewing this source I found that It focuses on china and their culture, customs, and traditions. China is a place that so many people have heard of, but don’t really know much about because of what they hear. China has very old traditions and tactics on how they live. Chinese culture can be incorporated in many other smaller cultures, not fully but in some ways it has influenced them. I found this source useful because it relates to my club and would be a good focus place. "Culture Of Laos - History, People, Clothing, Traditions, Women, Beliefs, Food, Customs, Family". 2019. Everyculture.Com. Accessed January 25 2019. https://www.everyculture.com/Ja-Ma/Laos.html. This source holds information on the cultural backgrounds, social aspects, and history of the people that live in Laos. They take their culture very seriously and have very specific culture and etiquette. Compared to many of the other places in asia that may be very big that people know about laos isn’t one of those places. Therefore, I wanted to include a more lowkey place that people may not know about and incorporate it into a lesson and a place of focus. This source goes into a large amount of detail on their culture, history, and customs which is why it is useful to me. Guide, Taiwan, and Taiwan Guide. 2019. "Taiwan - Language, Culture, Customs And Etiquette". Commisceo-Global.Com. Accessed January 25 2019. https://www.commisceo-global.com/resources/country-guides/taiwan-guide. After reviewing this source I found that it was a very useful source. It talks about taiwan and the background of the people that live there and what it is like to be from taiwan. It also talks about day to day struggles and backgrounds. This information is useful because it gives me a clear understanding of what goes on in taiwan and the cultures. It also is useful for me to know when teaching my club about taiwanese culture. "The New Teacher's Guide To Creating Lesson Plans | Scholastic". 2019. Scholastic.Com. Accessed January 25 2019. https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/new-teachers-guide-creating-lesson-plans/. This source holds information on how to make a successful lesson plan and what you need to do in order to achieve that. I found this source important because in order for me to teach and give presentations to the club I need to know how to make a successful lesson plan that people actually enjoy. In this source they focus on younger kids and how you should set up a lesson plan for them but i think it is more creative that way and will engage my club a lot more which is why I used it. One limitation of this source would be that they don’t give much context to how to sit down and make the lesson plan

For my Capstone I was given the opportunity to shadow five different working environments. I spent time volunteering at Best Buy, a local garden place, a daycare facility, a thrift shop, and Shoprite supermarket. Each of these places allowed me to think about where I would like to work while going to college. I found that I liked doing hands on work the most. At Best Buy I spent time organizing several items and at the garden place I cleaned different types of seeds to get them ready for the Spring. The daycare allowed me to help young children with what they were learning, such as basic math problems. Shoprite taught me how to stock shelves with different grocery items, while the thrift store had me organizing incoming items, to the correct spaces in the store. I learned most when being involved in the task given to me. If I was provided with more time I would have liked to return to the garden center. It was most interesting to me because I learned about many types of plants and how they grow and survive. It was neat to oversee the process that is involved in planting. If I stayed there for longer I would have gotten to plant the seeds that I cleaned. The shadowing opportunity taught me what it would be like to have a part-time job. I learned that it takes responsibility, focus, and the knowledge that you need to succeed at the task at hand. For example, at the garden center the knowledge of several plants is needed to best care for them. I feel ready to take what I have learned at these places and apply them to what I want to do for my part-time job. When I think about a career, I know for sure that I want to work with game and design. This is what I hope to go to college for. While I am in college I would like to have a part-time job. My part-time job choice would be the garden center. The shadowing opportunity has taught me what to expect if I got a job there. I appreciate Science Leadership Academy giving me this experience to find a job that fits my learning style best.