Assignment 21 - Dani Fauzi

Last semester I failed a class. Like, legitimately got an F. Furthermore, this was the first time I’d ever gotten a final grade in a class that wasn’t an A (au revoir, my 4.0 gpa). Due to this failure, I now have to retake the first semester of this class next year, meaning I can’t have a class during the 6-hour day for mentoring first semester. Furthermore, the teacher of this class is also pretty disappointed in me.
My blunder last semester, or more correctly my blunder throughout the entirety of my life in high school, was putting my mental health on the backburner. Before junior year, I could coast through classes while barely holding my mental health together due to the comparatively lighter workload I had. However, things came to a head last semester, and instead of seeking help for my worsening condition, I chose a class to ignore all my work in. Failing a class definitely helped my family accept that I needed To See Someone and I’ve accepted that in order to do well in school, I first must prioritize my health.  But maybe I can’t say I’ve truly learned much from the experience because I’m currently failing that class again this semester, and one other class as well. 

Assignment 20 - Dani Fauzi

How to embroider a patch

Ever wanted to stab a needle multiple times into a piece of fabric in order to stick it onto another piece of fabric, like a jacket or your holey pants? This is a blog post for you. 

For this, you will need:
Embroidery floss in colors you want...individual skeins are around 50 cents each, or you can get a multipack with a bunch of colors for a few bucks
Embroidery needles . they are not your average needles--the eye is larger for passage of the floss
An embroidery hoop. Plastic, though uglier, is preferable to wood because plastic hoops have a lip on the rim that better keep your fabric in place.
Fabric. Can’t be stretchy, try canvas or linen or cotton or cut up a pair of old khaki pants
A pen 
Fraycheck, to prevent fraying after cutting out the patch

1- Come up with an idea of a patch. I can’t really help you here but it should be kind of simple and not have too many words. Think of your favorite band, a simple logo, etc.
2 - draw your idea onto the fabric.
3 - Put your fabric in the hoop. Place the inner hoop, lip side up, on a surface and lay the fabric on top. Place the outer hoop over, and with the aid of the lip, pull the fabric taut while you tighten the screw on the outer hoop for smooth fabric.
4 - thread the floss through the eye of the needle, and tie a knot on the longer end of the floss
5 - make your first stitch: put the needle through the fabric from the back to the front, pulling all the way until the knot is flush against the back of the fabric
6 - continue stitching along the design you’ve drawn. 
7 - when you’re done, use a satin stitch, or a bunch of single stitches laid down next to each other, to put a border around your design 
8 - loosen the hoop, take out the fabric, cut out your finished patched, and douse the edges in fraycheck to protect your finished product.
9 - use a running stitch to affix the patch to an item of your choice!

Assignment 21 Elle Varner

A problem I wish to solve is the rising cost of college. As a student, the fear of graduating college and living on my own is daunting enough, but there’s an even bigger problem; student debt. Many students graduate college with large amounts of student debt that takes years and years to pay off. There is a vicious cycle, and it goes like this: we study and strive to do our best throughout high school in order to hopefully get into our dream school, we then pay huge sums of money to get into college in order to get a degree (which is almost essential to getting a job), we graduate college and finally find jobs in order to pay off our debt. 

Yes, this isn’t a new problem; and yes, generations before have faced this problem as well, but the cost of colleges are constantly increasing and something needs to be done about it. 

Assignment 22 Elle Varner

I believe that one of the qualities that makes me unique is the fact that I can talk to just about anyone. This is a quality that I’ve had my entire life and it has only grown stronger throughout the years. Some people find it annoying that I talk to almost every stranger I see, including some of the strangers who are just hoping I’d shut up and walk away, and others find it nice and friendly. I think this will help me find friends in college and I believe that the best use of it would be in a smaller college where I could get to know everyone on campus. I like smaller private schools, and I believe that I can take my social skills to the next level by going to one of those smaller private institutions. 

Assignment 20 Elle Varner

How to tie your shoes

1. Take the laces and cross them in an “X” shape
2. Take the bottom lace and pull it over the first one and through the bottom of the “X”
3. Pull both sides together
4. Loop both sides of the laces 
5. Repeat steps 1-3 with your loops
6. Admire your beautiful tied shoe laces

Assignment 22 Luke de Castro

My time at MIT Launch was a formative experience for me. In the summer leading up to Sophomore year, I spent a month at MIT studying entrepreneurship and creating a small startup with three other students. The experience taught me about being scrappy to get things done. Creating a business plan in one month took hard work and creativity. We had to email, call, and skype with professionals; fight just to get interviews; and burn the midnight oil to complete assignments. The program taught me to persevere through any setback.

            I learned how to be more independent and come up with my own solutions to problems. At school or home, an adult is always right there to hold your hand. While away for a month (a record for me) I became more independent and discovered how to navigate the world without that constant helping hand. It gave me more confidence, for I know that when I leave home for college and beyond I will be better able to live by myself.

Assignment 20 Luke de Castro

How to get started coding:

Programming is the fastest growing skill in the world. It is relevant in all fields of study, but how do you get started? This blog post will include a step-by-step process on how to get started coding.

1)    Getting started: A great way to get started coding is finding an online course through Udemy, or Codecademy. These websites include tutorials on how to get your first program running. When picking a programming language to learn first, it is important to consider want kind of software you want to create. For general purpose programming, pick either Java or Python, for web based applications, it would be smart to choose JavaScript or HTML/CSS, and for other specialized languages, a good google search would point you in the right direction.

2)    Diving deeper: Once completing an online course, it’s time for next steps: books and paid classes. These are more expensive, but offer you a deeper dive into the language of your choice. A good programming textbook can be a great resource for all your programming needs, and a class could provide the individualized help that pushes you further.

3)    Going further: After you have learned all you can from books, classes, and other resources, what you need next is experience. Search for opportunities such as internships or university research. These experiences will offer you invaluable knowledge that you won’t find in a book. 

Assignment 21 - Isabella Matthews

First semester. Freshman year. I still have very little memory of what all happened. My parents describe it as a result of dealing with a series of health issues, both new and old, in addition to adjusting to high school and losing most of my friends from middle school. All I can recall is a handful of days strewn throughout the semester. I can recall the first day of school, and the first monday, and halloween, and maybe 2 or 3 days in December. Everything in between is a shaky blur of daily panic attacks, frequent doctor’s appointments, and failing grades. Somehow I got myself together in time for second semester and moved on with my life like nothing had happened, even making straight A’s.

We don’t often talk about that time period at my house. My parents were worried beyond belief and I think it caused them to suppress a lot of memories of it too. We don’t talk about the fact that I have anxiety. Or the fact that it’s taken a few months from me that I can never get back.

Although I have few memories of this time, I know that when I came out of it I had a new philosophy of how different things affect different people in different ways. It’s all relative. Based on the experiences you’ve had, the way you were raised, or the way you think about things, you might think one thing isn’t a big deal in comparison to bigger issues like war or world hunger. But while something might seem like a minor issue to you, it might be tearing someone else’s life apart. Realizing this has helped me to accept and help other people with their problems no matter what they might be, as well as to understand that it doesn’t matter the reason for someone’s hurting so much as it matters that they are hurting in general; that they need to be the focus, not things that often can’t be helped.

Assignment 22 - Julia Meadors

Though this normally isn’t the first thing that I tell people when I meet them, one defining factor in my life is that I’m a triplet. My whole life I have had to share everything from my space to my food. This has led me to be close to my siblings as we have been together our whole lives. I really feel like a small school would be a great fit for me because I really want to be able to get to know the people around me instead of just being among a huge group of students who I would never be able to get to know. I also want my school to be close enough to home to be able to visit, but far enough away to have my own space. Though, there is also the fact of money. I really want to be able to go to a school like Berea with a work-study program so you don’t have to pay tuition and there is also good study abroad programs. 

Assignment 21 - Julia Meadors

Tendonitis. A condition in which the tissue connecting muscle to the bone becomes inflamed.

As a member of the marching band, we spend countless hours on the student parking lot marching back and forth across the hot parking lot beginning in July. During the first few days, everything was going well, we were going over all the fundamentals with the freshmen and I was teaching my section how to march. But then after the first week, I would feel a throbbing pain in my ankle. At first, I chalked it up to muscle pains from all of the physical activity, icing my ankle during lunch and sectionals, but even after I would ice my ankle constantly for several hours, it would hurt as soon as I started doing more activity. I eventually went to my doctor who took some x-rays but didn’t see anything wrong and sent me to a specialist. The specialist told me I was not allowed to march for two days until I could get an MRI.

When I went to the appointment after the MRI a little afraid for the result, and an hour after I walked out with a brand new boot and a tendonitis diagnosis. Though for most people, being in a boot would have ended their season, I was determined to keep marching.  It was difficult but I managed to figure out how to alter what I was doing in order to continue marching. I had to make sure that I was doing everything above and beyond because I stood out, especially during competitions where I had a grey boot while everyone else was wearing all black. I also had to attend physical therapy three times a week at 7:00am in order to not miss school. Eventually, I finished the season out marching in the boot.  Sure I had to sit out some during rehearsals, but I made it work and never got discouraged.

Assignment 20 - Julia Meadors

Every day I come to school early and leave school late several days a week for various band rehearsals so it only seems fitting to write my “How to..” over something I do so often. So here is my guide on How to play the saxophone.

First, you must have all of the necessary materials. This includes a neck strap in order to help hold the saxophone, the horn which is the largest piece of the saxophone, the neck which is the smaller piece that attaches to the top of the neck, the mouthpiece, a reed which you will attach to the mouthpiece, and the ligature which holds the reed to the mouthpiece.

Once you have gathered all of the necessary materials you can begin assembling the instrument. First, take the neck strap and place it around your neck so that the hook is hanging down by your chest. Next, pick up the largest section of the saxophone and attach it to the neck strap by the small metal hook on the back. Next, you will grab the neck of the saxophone and attach it to the top part of the horn, turning the little screw so that the neck is secure and will not move. Then, you will put the mouthpiece on the cork part of the neck, pushing it on until it is secure. Later, when you are playing the saxophone, you can adjust how far the mouthpiece is on the cork in order to tune the instrument. Finally, you need to prepare and attach the reed. Unwrap the reed from the plastic and remove it from the hard plastic case. Put the reed in your mouth for 2-3 minutes, flipping it over in your mouth occasionally in order to thoroughly wet the reed. After you have done this, place the reed on the mouthpiece, thinner side towards the tip of the mouthpiece. Align the reed with the mouthpiece, the tip of the reed should be just at the tip of the mouthpiece so you can see just a little bit of black above the reed. Then, put the ligature over both the reed and mouthpiece and secure it tightly by turning the screws.

Now that you have your saxophone assembled, all you have to do it set your embouchure, which is how your face is set to play the instrument. For a saxophone, you will take your bottom lip and barely cover your bottom teeth. You will then put the mouthpiece in your mouth, place your top teeth on the top of the mouthpiece, but your bottom lip on the reed, firm the corners of your mouth, and blow.