Stocks

 

My Stock Recording Sheet

The beginning of this project started with a book. I know, it seems strange that a stock project would be created out of a book. But a character, Turtle Wexler from The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, from the book we read loved stocks. And it seemed fitting to our teacher, and to us, as we would soon find out, to give us this stock experience.
The first thing we did with this project was to create a spreadsheet. A spreadsheet would record our stock information. We wrote formulas into the boxes on the spreadsheet so we wouldn’t have to calculate our gains and losses by hand, and we programmed it to do it quickly. We were warned not to mess with the columns that had the formulas, or else it would ruin our project. So we were careful.
The next thing we did after that was to choose our stocks. We could only choose up to six (me, I chose four) and we had to get as close to 20,000 dollars as we could, using the shares that we bought. The closest we could get depended on how much each share was from each company we invested in. I invested in the Boeing Company, Netflix, Delta Airlines, Inc., and Amazon, Inc. 
The final thing we did was check it from week to week. We recorded our gains or losses on an “old-timey” recording sheet. We followed our stocks for three months. Then, at the end of those three months, we calculated the total gain/loss and then wrote about it here!
Thank you for reading this blog post on my stock experience! Here is some extra information:
  1. Boeing Company – I invested in it because when I first checked it I looked into the previous rates and it had good business
  2. Netflix – I invested in this company because I know how popular Netflix is with people and how many people use the company, so I figured it was a good investment
  3. Delta Air Lines – I invested in this because some airlines are actually pretty successful, and I know that Delta airlines were one that my family has used before, so I looked into it and the shares were cheap so I invested in many shares
  4. Amazon – I invested this because I know how big a company Amazon is and how industrial it is, so I figured it would make a lot of money 
By May 25, 2021, I lost $173.14.

 

TED Talk

Hello, today I’m writing about my TED Talk and my experience with it.

TED Talks are really interesting to do, especially with the process of it. The first thing we did before we started wasn’t even brainstorming. It was watching TED Talks on the TED website, or on the app.

The reason why we started watching talks was so we could understand what they are, how they work, and how the speakers convey their messages. TED Talks are used to make a point or to tell a story, or both. They also do many other things.
One of the things that we were meant to study while looking at these talks was how the speaker opened the talk. Did they start with a question? A statement? A picture? How did they draw the listeners in?

The next step was to brainstorm ideas for what we wanted our TED Talks to be about. I heard many ideas, like climate change, RVs and how they work, sleep, psychology, emotions, and many more. My personal topic was about how experiences shape people, and about diverse thought and action.

After we figured out our topic, we had to figure out two more things: why it was important to us and what our through line was.
The first question was pretty self-explanatory. My topic was important to me because of all of the experiences that had happened to me, and how they changed me. Equality is also really important to me, and that was a factor too.
The second question is a little more confusing. A through-line is the sequence of things you are going to talk about. In a TED Talk, the goal is to hit each point in your through-line. The through-line also helps you stay on topic, and it prevents you from going off on irrelevant tangents.
My through-line was simple and easy to complete, so I managed that with ease. For other people, it wasn’t as simple.

After we figured out the answers to those two questions, we started working on what we were going to say, and how we wanted our slides to look. A tip from a book we read, Thank You for Coming to my TED Talk by Chris Anderson with Lorin Oberweger, said that our slides should be simplistic and clear. Too much text can override what you’re saying. If you put exactly what you’re saying on the slide, the crowd would have already read your slide and would be ready to move on. If you’re going to have pictures, have them be full bleed, or have them fill up the entire background. Backgrounds should be all one color.

Tips like those helped us understand how to put together our presentation, and helped us do a TED Talk that people could understand.

Here is an excerpt from my script:

I’m going to be entirely honest; I walked into this hoping not to fall flat on my face. I was nervous. Excited, too, of course, but nervous. The nervousness changed my perception of what I was about to do because of the intense emotion I felt. But now that I’m up here, it’s slowly going away. And that experience is showing me that whatever it is that I’m nervous about isn’t as scary as I always think it is before I go and do it. This is going to change me.

Finally, after the writing and planning and practicing was over (we did a LOT of practicing!), we started to present. It took four days for everyone to present, and over that time I learned so much about so many topics! TED Talks are interesting, engaging and there are so many things to talk about.

Thank you for reading this blog post of my TED Talk, and the process.

Me giving my TED Talk

 

Tree Books

On the week of March 15, we began our tree books.

We worked on these books for two months, going through several steps to get them ready for the Frank Gallery in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. We worked with local artist Peg Gignoux (visit https://gignouxart.com/ for more information on her and her work), and she helped us create works of art using Akua ink, screen printing, and many more tools.

The first step we took was when we started these books. At first, we had to paint big pieces of paper blue for our sky background. We folded several parts of big paper to create the structure of our tree books. Then we Screen printed parts of poems that we wrote onto the shell of the book.

Next, we collected plants and parts of nature that we could create prints of. Of course, it couldn’t be something like a pine cone because of the density of it, but leaves and flowers were ok. We spread ink onto a jelly plate, set the plant down on the plate, took a piece of paper and a brayer, and rolled the paper onto the plant. When we lifted it, there was a gorgeous print of a plant! We used several different types of paper, like dictionary paper, map paper, and blank white paper. When there was a lot of ink on the jelly plate, we could make two or three prints from the same plant.

After that, we started to collage the prints onto our books. We cut up the Akua ink prints and made shapes and a natural background out of them. Then we glued them onto the book, which was now ready for more steps.

Then we took envelopes and hid them in different parts of our books. We collaged over them so no one could find them, making them look like the natural background on our books.

After this step, we started to make our writing pieces. Our first one was the Salute to my Roots, which was an essay about someone important to us that was related to us, or we considered family on a very small scale. I wrote about my cousin and my grandmother, two very important figures in my life. To me, it was easy. I had so much to write about them.

Then we wrote a Life List. A Life List is a list of things you want to accomplish in your life. Mine was really big because I have so many things I would like to accomplish. I hope to do all of them, and I will work as hard as I can to do them!

After we finished this, we had two more writing pieces to do. Our next one was our When This Is Over poem. It listed things that we wouldn’t take for granted after this pandemic is over, and it listed things that we hoped would stay the same in our lives. Here is a part of mine:

When this is over, may we never again take for granted

The laughter of children playing together

The hug of a grandparent

The take-off of an airplane

The everyday conversation with our neighbors 

A crowded grocery store

Long school plays

When this ends I hope for

The doorbell ringing from a delivery person 

Bringing dinner

As we sit in the living room

Getting ready to watch a movie

The time we revealed

To play board games with our families

Without any hurry

For other things

The last thing we wrote was titled My Wish. This (or these) was (were) a wish or wishes that we hoped for. It made me really stop and think about what I wished for. I know that there are those wishes that you make at the moment, like on a holiday break you wish it won’t end. Or how you wish for a thing or your birthday. But I don’t remember the things I’ve wished for on my birthday in past years. I remember these wishes that I wished for this writing piece because they are so incredibly important to me.

The last thing we did to close off this project was we read the book Wishtree by Katherine Applegate. It has many empowering statements that really made me think about my life and my hopes and dreams.

Thank you for reading this blog post about the Tree Book Project!

Music

 

Hello and welcome back to my blog! I am going to be talking about music, and what it means to me.

During COVID-19, my weekly lessons of piano, guitar and singing stopped being in person and went to being online. It was hard for the first lessons; there was so much more to figure out. It was up to me to push myself and find out what I could do by myself. And this was challenging.

But the more I delved into the music that I was making and the music I listened to, I realized how much music had an impact on me. It gives me clarity and it’s fun to play songs. I pride myself on what I can do with my voice, with the piano, and with the guitar, and that’s all because of the motivation it gives me. It’s like a cycle. I play and practice, and that gives me pride. And then I want to do it again because I want to feel that pride again.

I love to listen to music other people have written, and that helps to give me inspiration in the stories I write, or just to make something that would normally be boring fun. When I have chores to do, I normally listen to music while I do them to give me motivation to finish.

Music is a big part of me, and has been since I was little. I love to play instruments and to sing, and I encourage everyone to try and learn to play an instrument. The feelings it gives me are the feelings I want everyone to experience.

Thanks for reading!

Frances Dowell Story

 

Just Write from CreativeCommons

Hello and welcome back to my blog! I am going to be telling you about the story I wrote while working with author Frances Dowell!

Francea Dowell is an author who lives in North Carolina. My classmates and I worked with her on our stories for three to four months using the methods below.

The process started with What If? questions. We generated questions that started with “what if”, like “What if I could fly?”. Then we would take that what if question and turn it into a starting scene.

The starting scene had to have action to draw the reader in. We had to generate a paragraph to kick the story off. We didn’t put too much detail in or too much information about the character. We just created action.

After the starting scene, we wrote something called a background check. This is where we would share information about the character and their background. We detailed who they were and what their families were like.

Then we did stick and stone problems. These problems were problems that got bigger as the story went on. The stick problem was just a little problem, a “stick” in the path. Our characters could get over this problem pretty easily. The stone problem was a little bigger, but our characters worked to solve it and with a little time and effort, they fixed the problem.

Then came the big monster problem. This was the hardest problem to solve, and it required a lot of effort and thinking to get through it. Our resolution came after the monster problem scene, and that’s when everything got fixed.

After we wrote our stories, our classmates and Mrs. Dowell gave us feedback. This was a time for revising and editing what we had written. I learned a lot from the feedback my friend and Mrs. Dowell gave me, such as to make sure that I had equal parts dialogue and informational texts, and to make sure that I described things that people maybe couldn’t picture on their own.

I love to write, and this project was super fun to do. I am very proud of the work that I did and I owe a lot of my help to Mrs. Dowell!

Check out her website below!

Home

Window or Mirror?


Hello and welcome back to my blog! In this post I am going to be talking about windows or mirrors.

First off, what is a window and what is a mirror? You may be thinking of the window that you see on a building, or a mirror that you find in a bathroom. This is a good interpretation, but not quite the one I’m talking about. A window or mirror refers to a book. Is the book you’re reading a window into another world, or is a mirror, reflecting back your own life?

For me, the books that I’m reading (Keeper of the Lost Cities series) is a mirror and a window. It’s more window than mirror; it’s an incredible fantasy book that has aspects and things I’ve never heard of before. But sometimes I catch glimmers of things that I’ve felt in my own life. I’ve had moments over the course of my life where I’ve felt nervous and scared, like the character, or where I’ve felt confident in what I’m doing, like the character. Or when I’ve just had a conflict with my friends and I need to fix it. Or when there’s a problem that needs solving and there’s that ice cold determination to fix it deep inside of me. These are the things that make it a mirror sometimes.

So, in the comments, respond to this question: Is your book a window or mirror? Why?

Thank you!

 

Daily Habit: February

My January habit tracker.

Hey everyone, and welcome back to my blog! Today I am going to be sharing with you more about my daily habit, and what I’m going to be doing for the month ahead.

I chose to do my DribbleUp ball every day that I got for Christmas. I didn’t make a note of specific classes I had to do, I just did what I was feeling or what I thought needed improvement on that day. I chose it because I wanted to use it to help me improve my footwork for my futsal season. This really helped me with my footwork and my agility in games that I played. On my habit tracker when I did my DribbleUp ball I marked it as blue. And when I had games, I marked a red PZ; to stand for Performance Zone. My games were when I performed my skills.

Sometimes it was tiring and sometimes I didn’t want to do it; I just wanted to lie down on the couch. I admit that sometimes that was exactly what I did! But I managed to get myself up and tell myself, “This is your habit, you have to stick with it. You have to do it; make it count!” And I really was glad afterward that I did it because I learned something new and I made myself better.

I saw my own self improve with moves that I did and skills that I performed; it was really inspiring to me how practicing for a little bit each day changed how I played futsal.

I’ve mentioned futsal twice now but I haven’t explained what it is! Futsal is a game that is sort of like soccer, except it moves faster, is only played with four players and a goalie, is supposed to be played inside on a court, and the games themselves are shorter. My team and I played against all boy teams.

After doing my habit, I was tired but I felt accomplished. I felt good. And I was really proud of myself when I saw myself do things that I had learned but never tried. It really benefited me in a lot of ways, and I’m definitely going to keep my habit.

So, for February, I am going to keep my daily DribbleUp goal…but I’m also adding another goal. I play piano, guitar and I sing, and right now I realize that I’m not exactly keeping up with guitar and singing as I should be. So my goal is to play my guitar and practice my singing every day for the entire month of February!

Thank you for reading about my daily habits!

 

 

Photography Club Post

Hi and welcome back to my blog! I’m in photography club, and I take a bunch of really cool photos then edit them (like healing places, cropping and changing a filter) to make them even cooler. Here are some of the ones I took recently!

Thanks for looking at my photos!