Assignment 19 Danielle Dutton

As juniors, we’re at that point in our high school careers when everyone is telling us how important college is, how big of a decision choosing a school is, and how you have to find the one that fits you perfectly. And that’s a lot of pressure to add to our already incredibly busy lives. A couple weeks ago I was talking to my mom about how worried I was about college because I have no idea where I want to go or what I want to do or really how to figure that out. After recounting to me how she had switched colleges about three times, majors about six, and gone to college a total of six years before getting a degree because of all her switches, she told me that nothing, not even college, is really a make or break thing. My college choice isn’t going to be the deciding factor of whether my life forever after is happy or miserable, and neither is any other single decision I will make. That realization that no one decision is going to make or break the rest of my life has made thinking about the future in any capacity much less stressful, because I know that no matter what I end up doing or where I end up going, I can still make the best out of my life.

Assignment 18 Danielle Dutton

1 1. This has been a goal of mine for a long time, and I’m slowly achieving it, but I’d really like to end my chronic procrastination. This year with key terms and web homework I’ve gotten a lot better at completing assignments gradually and not waiting until the last minute, but I still have my moments. I have noticed, however, that not procrastinating has relieved so much of my stress, and I’d like to continue that through the end of my high school years (especially with college applications next year) and throughout college.

2 2. My biggest goal for college is to find and excel at something I’ll enjoy doing for the rest of my life. Since the college talks have started, I’ve been afraid that in twenty years I’ll end up loathing whatever I choose to major in (and at this point I’m still very undecided on what that will be). I want to find a program so I can enter into a career I’ll enjoy until I retire. I want to set myself up to love my job and be good at it too.

3 3. I’ve always been intrigued with the idea of travelling the world, and aside from the stereotypical “be happy and have a nice family,” travelling is definitely at the top of my life bucket list. I want to see all the wonders the world has to offer – natural, manmade, human, cultural, or otherwise. I want to take the stereotypical tourist pictures holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa, explore the modern city streets of Tokyo, ride on a llama to Machu Picchu, and experience more of France as a local with the French family I lived with last summer. Whether it be in my 20s or after I retire, being a stereotypical tourist or experiencing a new place with the help of a local, I want to travel the world before I die because I think that those experiences provide a valuable worldview and heightened cultural awareness crucial for today’s global society.

Assignment 17 Danielle Dutton

Here's a link to my review of The Greatest Showman
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/user/id/977105885/ratings

Assignment 19- Katie Demos

I can’t pinpoint a specific piece of advice that changed my life and really deeply affected me, but I can definitely identify an experience. Last year, this exact week, I was at all state. Idiot sophomore me rolled up to the Galt House hotel, feeling like a million bucks because I had made The Top Band at all state. I was on cloud nine and was untouchable. 10th grade and in the top ten flute players in the state?! Colleges had better watch out for me! Strutting in with my luggage for the weekend and an extra high ego in tow, I was ready to kill it. But how was I planning to do that when I didn’t care about music and hadn’t practiced the music for the week for more than 20 minutes tops? When I arrived to the first rehearsal, I promptly began to converse with kids around me and tried to act like the Cool Kid™. Upon meeting my director, I didn’t realize what greatness I was in the presence of, until 30 minutes into the rehearsal, she stopped us in a particularly hard section I had trouble with. Looking almost directly at me, she said “I am disappointed right now. You kids are supposed to represent the best of your schools, and yet some of you sit here, incompetent, even after having been given the music in advance.” I remember paying more attention after that. That week, I learned more about myself than I ever had before. How could I have ever acted so unprofessionally in a rehearsal, crossing my legs or checking my phone every 20 minutes? I had an amazing opportunity in front of me, and until about the second day, I had been squandering it. As the week went on, I learned about and played music entirely differently. I felt deeper, discovered a new dimension of myself emotionally, and really found myself and what I wanted to do. This powerful, female conductor changed my life. She lit a fire in me to work harder in whatever I do and accomplish my dreams through determination. To this day, when I listen to much we played, I cry. My life has never been the same since that week.

Assignment 20 - Dani Fauzi

“No matter how alone you feel in dealing with issues in life, there’s many people out there that are working through the same problems.” I was offered this advice by my cousin after we discussed how our lives have been affected by the similar ways our parents raised us. Before I’d felt like I was alone in having to deal with a conservative family and the cultural barriers between myself and my parents; I never considered that I would ever be able to enthusiastically discuss with anyone the guilt and indebtedness to my parents I feel as a child of immigrants. It’s a consolation to realize that most other teenagers also are caught in the undertow of family problems, adolescent mental health issues, and difficulty in succeeding in academics. People coming of age have wrestled with these issues for centuries. Most emerge out of their adolescent years fine. I probably will too.

Assignment 17- Katie Demos

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/user/id/977105780
Link to a review I did on the disappointing movie "The Shallows"(2016).

Assignment 18- Katie Demos

1. I want to pass my gold moves before I finish high school. In skating, we aspire to pass a certain set of tests in order to compete at different levels and have credentials to our names. There’s a set of moves for freestyle skating(jumping and spinning), ice dance(pattern dances), and moves(figures and turns). In order to be able to teach with credentials, I have to have completed either my gold moves or ice dance, and then teach in that respective area, or teach freestyle. Think of it like a high school or college diploma. Finishing my gold moves has been a goal of mine since I began skating, and it remains one of my biggest goals to have them completed by the end of my high school years.
2. Feel secure with myself and my decisions. I don’t want to regret anything once I’m done with college. I hope that I learn from both good and bad choices I make, and that those choices help me develop as a person and prepare me to help positively influence society somehow. College needs to be a time for me where I find my place and what impact I’m going to make as an adult.
3. Hopefully recognize that I never needed a bucket list and didn’t use one. When my life is close to over, I’ll gage how I lived based on what I felt and created, not based on a to do list of aspirations that, if I don’t “check off,” will just foster a sense of incompetence and failure. I don’t like to live on an agenda and I’m not an organized person. I believe that by the time things are all said and done, that it will be alright that I did what I did and that I was never meant to do what I didn’t do.

Assignment 18- Will Gregory

    High School-While yes, it may be rather cliché, My most important goal for me to accomplish before I graduate High School has to be achieving some sort of scholarship to college. Money is such an important issue when it comes to college and being able to get some sort of scholarship (I mean a full ride would be lovely but I'm trying to be realistic here). I will hopefully be able to do that by continuing to raise my GPA and by doing well on the ACT.
   College- before I graduate college I wasn't to really be able to know my direction in life. I don't want to come out of college and get a generic desk job with my degree because I don't know exactly what i want to do with my career. I want to have I good idea of this before I graduate so I wont get stuck in a boring corporate job for much of my career as so many others do.
   Life- This is quite the big question. To which I will once again give a cliché answer. I want to build a family, like a huge family. Family is such and important aspect of my life that I just can't wait to make my own.

Assignment 17- Will Gregory

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/user/id/977105598/ratings

Assignment 18 - Dani Fauzi

1. I’m hesitant to enter a goal for this first time frame because the end of high school is only a year and a half away and with my track record, I may not accomplish what I want to. Setting a goal and then realizing that 1.5 years passed without any action would be kind of sad. So I’ll keep it simple: before I finish high school I hope I fill up at least one more sketchbook after I finish the one I am currently using.
2. Before I finish college, I would like to become fully fluent in Indonesian. I’m nearly there reading and listening-wise; I just need to work on my speaking skills. I want to be able to read the original texts of Indonesian writers like Charil Anwar and Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and I would also like to be able to talk to my extended family in Indonesian.
3. Before I finish living, I want to successfully mold a dorodango, which is Japanese for “shiny mud dumpling”. Mud and persistence are combined to create a perfect, shiny sphere. There is a short film on National Geographic featuring a guy from the American Southwest with all varieties of dorodango, in various colors due to different soils.

Assignment 17 - Dani Fauzi

Link to my review of 13th: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/user/id/961896805/rating/771446861

Christopher Beebout Assignment 20

Congressional debate. What a trainwreck. But I’ve gotten ok at it recently, so I guess I can attempt a basic outline of what I do.

Wednesday before the tournament—Legislation for debate drops on tabroom.com. You get there as quickly as possible and scan the bills for good topics, bad topics, and the number of schools, along with any familiar names among the authors. You then must get on GroupMe, making sure to be the first one to get all the Kentucky schools organized into a docket-making group—the more assertive and connected you appear to the competition, the better. Docket negotiations commence; don’t complain with what the more experienced debaters decide to debate, just go with their flow and beat them wherever they put you.

Wednesday thru Saturday morning—Write all the speeches. ALL OF THEM. And then take a nap Saturday morning from 1 to 4 to energize yourself before you have to leave at 5:30 AM.

Saturday—Go into the tournament early to find small schools and get their contact info, offering them information in exchange for votes during procedural matters. Go into the chamber, smile at all the people you are about to crush, and then do so with poise, aggressiveness, and intelligence. Make yourself known to the big names and secure Presiding Officer positions to maximize your chances of placing. Also, goof around with the host school’s property during breaks—congress rooms often have pianos or fun chairs.

Saturday night—collapse on your bed and atrophy your brain with YouTube.

That’s how I do Congress.

Christopher Beebout Assignment 19

“Ya pays yer money and ya takes yer choice.” -Richard Beebout

There’s a lot about my grandpa I don’t know. I’m sure he had struggles and conflicts and triumphs and adventures just like any of us have had. During the course of one of those adventures, he uttered this phrase, and continued to utter it ever since. When I was little I never thought about it much; I just liked the way it sounded on his smooth, southern baritone.

But then I got older. I’m seventeen now and have had to make some tough decisions. And they keep getting tougher. Sometimes I find myself paralyzed by a chronic fear of the responsibility that comes with decision-making. If I choose wrong, how many people will I hurt? How much will I hurt myself?

That’s when I must remember this advice. Sometimes, no matter how “tough” the choice is or how wrong you are, you just have to pick an option according to your values and morals and remember that you are strong enough to weather any consequences thereof. If you can muster the maturity to positively deal with negative consequences, then only the rewards of your decisions will remain.

Christopher Beebout Assignment 18

Hmm. I’ve never really had a bucket list. I don’t know, I guess I’ve just sort of gone wherever the winds of my circumstances have blown me. So I suppose for my bucket list, I must choose my own path for a change.

High school—High school is not merely a place of learning; it is a proving ground. Thus far I have quantified most of my life’s success by measure of how well I’ve done on tests, my grades, my GPA, and other standards. But is there not more to life? Even as I must shackle myself to the education system to get into college, perhaps I should think more about my religion and personal relationships to find fulfillment.

College—Find a good one, don’t get into loads of debt and apply the things I (hopefully) will learn from item #1.

Life—Be more than a cog. Shatter the lack of purpose in this mortal coil. Make a difference in at least one person’s life—but hopefully quite a few.

Christopher Beebout Assignment 17

For my comparison, I am going to compare the Star Wars prequel films (Episodes I-III), directed by George Lucas.

Most people hate the prequel films. I, however, am not of that close-minded ilk. I grew up with the prequels, loving the flashy graphics, lightning-fast action, and yes, Jar-Jar Binks. So my comparison will attempt to assign as much love to these underworked disasters as can be done, while recognizing their vices.

The best thing that the prequels have in common are the fights. The special effects, acrobatics, exotic locations, and blazing pyrotechnics found in the prequel trilogy are unparalleled in scope and in spectacularism. The battle over Coruscant still gives me chills.

The worst thing that the prequels have in common is the lack of plot. Anakin Skywalker has no personality and even less of an IQ. To have such a meaningless blob as a protagonist alone knocks the trilogy down a few notches in quality. The characters have no clear goal or motivations; stuff just happens. In a really cool way with explosions and lasers.

The prequels are a mixed bag. But they shouldn’t be as hated as they are by many.

Assignment 20: How to …

Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade?
--Benjamin Franklin

Ben makes a good point. For this week, put your gifts and skills on display by developing a "how-to." Choose something that you have a level of expertise in and explain step by step how it is done.

No repeats though! If two people are both really talented at making ice and one beats the other to the post on "How to make ice..." then, second person - you need to reflect upon your other talents.

So, stop standing in the shade and astound us!

Oh, this can be a video blog that you create.

Minimum of 150 words - due Sunday, February 18th at 11:59 pm

March 25th is the last day to make up blogs 20-22

Assignment 19 Harris Hawkins

The majority of advice adults give me generally comes through one ear and out the other. Half hearted advice that can't really be applied in my day to day life. Until one day, when my teenage mind was captivated.
         I had knee surgery last January and it was a rough time for me. My surgeon, Dr. Lyon, was a great knee surgeon but a better man. He understood I was a dumb teenage boy and made sure I knew not to rush my recovery. He was one of the few adults I took seriously. He gave me tons of advice, but the one thing I'll remember the rest of my life is his lecture about hard work.
        I was in his office a week before my surgery and he brought up his son. His son happens to work for the most famous law office in New York City. I asked him how his son became so successful. His response surprised me because I was informed his son attended a state university for undergrad and a middle of the road law school. His son held a 3.2 GPA, which was good but not great. So long story short his son got the job because of his interview. He told his boss, "I know for a fact I'm not the smartest nor most qualified person you have interviewed. But not a single person in the world will out work me." He got the job because his boss valued hard work. Hard work takes you farther than anything else.
         Most people think athletes will never be the same after an ACL tear, or even worse never play again. The rehab requires 8-12 months of hell (A.K.A. physical therapy). And you can't just attend physical therapy, you can't skip a single rep. I thought of my surgeons advice everyday I had to go, and I prevailed.

Assignment 18 Harris Hawkins

High School-  I'd say for the rest of my time in high school the most important thing is to improve my ACT score. Easier said than done, test taking has also been one of my strengths but I haven't been able to crack the ACT yet. The higher my standardized test scores, the more opportunities I'll have down the road for academics and basketball. The GPA doesn't worry me, 12 years of school allows you to learn all the tricks of the trade. Another dream I've had since I was little, involves winning the 11th Region basketball tournament and getting the chance to play the State tournament in Rupp Arena. I'll have two more chances to achieve this goal. Finally, my last goal for high school is to enjoy every moment. The good, the bad, the ugly; it's over in a flash and I want to cherish these moments.
College- My ultimate goal or bucket list in College is to discover who I am as a person. Find my identity and grow into a man. Act on my believes and morals, not based on other people. I guess getting an education might be important as well. Joking-- a high quality education ranks first as I dive into college searches. Another item on my College bucket list would be to meet new people and try new things.
Life- Wow this is a tough one. I could talk about raising kids and having a loving wife and blah blah blah. But honestly, I want to feel like I've lived a productive life when I die. Did I impact peoples life in a positive way? Did I better society in any way? My life is so meaningless in the big picture of the world but I'm going to live my best life.

Assignment 19: Plastics

Most of the advice we receive in our lives is unsolicited and quite frankly inane.  However, every once in a while we get a real gem and changes our trajectory.  What is the one piece of advice given to you that has stuck?  Explain its effect on your life.

Minimum of 150 words - due Sunday, February 4th at 11:59 pm

February 11th is the last day to make up blogs 17-19

Assignment 18: Buckets and Buckets

Welcome to your first blog prompt for 2016! Yay!

A bucket list is a list of everything you want to accomplish before you kick the bucket. That doesn't mean you can't have such a list for specific aspects of your life as well.

To begin the year, generate your own bucket lists - one for high school, one for college, and one for life. Then, write about the priority on each list.

1. What is the number one item on your bucket list before you finish high school?
2. What is the number one item on your bucket list before you finish college?
3. What is the number one item on your bucket list before you finish living?

(This blog is inspired by Axel Liimatta - former academy teacher - my friend and former colleague that inspires me to live every day more fully)

Minimum of 150 words - due Sunday, January 21st  at 11:59 pm

February 11th is the last day to make up blogs 17-19