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A few days ago, I officially entered the IB Diploma with some of the world’s most challenging subjects to overcome. First day I entered Economics class (High level), we already had four sheets of vocabulary to define, and these sheets were double sided. I started as soon as I got home, and one sheet took me TWO HOURS! One hour for each side. I know that I can’t let my work pile up, otherwise I’ll be a dead man. At the moment I’m sitting in the library waiting for class to end, but I know next class will have plenty of challenges for me to overcome and many occasions for me to use my brain. Hey, at least there isn’t a dull moment. Wish me luck with the IB guys, my entire life is going to be determined by how I do in these two years.

Arrivaderci!

A few weeks ago, we began this year’s passion project. Some of you may remember my blogs chronicling last year’s passion project, but now I’m going to stray from writing for the project and go instead to creating. For this year’s project, I am planning on making our Language Arts classroom look like outer space. I plan on hanging starts and planets on the roof, and the stars will glow in the dark once the lights close. I chose this idea because I have a passion for outer space, since it is one of the most mysterious things ever studied, and I wish to pursue a career in the field. If this succeeds, I will be able to make our Language Arts classroom look a lot more out of this world and I hope it will be well received by my the people who view it.

Over the past few weeks, my partner Taewoong and I had been working on a media campaign to raise awareness for how human actions can affect animal habitats. We had to choose three mediums, and decided to use four videos and podcasts, each relating to an endangered animal, and also created flyers. We presented this past Friday, and decided to treat our audience as conference attenders rather than students, in order to create the illusion that we were professionally showing our research to real world companies. We decided that our base animals for the videos and podcasts would be the Albatross, Rhinoceros, Whale and Tiger. We chose the last three because many people know about them and it is easy to discuss them, but we  included the Albatross as well since it is an animal that is endangered and also not widely known of.  For our four flyers, we chose the Sun Bear, Panda, Tiger and Polar Bear. Once again, I included the Sun Bear as it is not as widely known as the rest of the animals but also deserves recognition as it is as endangered as the rest. During the presentation, I feel that I spoke very well and clearly. I began to speak slower in order for non English speakers to understand me, and also used a wide array of persuasive vocabulary to help prove my point. However, If I were to add anything, I would have liked to have created a website for our organization, but since we did not have enough time, we could not carry it through. If we had included a website as one of our mediums, it would have greatly distinguished our presentation from the others.  Overall, though, I feel that I performed how I should have on my grade level, and am also satisfied with my performance.

Before our winter break, we began to delve into our unit on media in Language arts class. Now that winter break is over, we have to create our own media campaign about an environmental issue in the world today. I am working with my classmate, Taewoong, and we both decided that we should create a campaign to make people further aware of how animals are affected by human actions. We need to express our campaign through the use of different media. Taewoong and I have created posters, videos, and are now working on a podcast for our campaign. We are defending many endangered animals which have a large risk of becoming extinct, such as the blue whale and the polar bear. Once we are done, I will report on the success of our campaign.

Our grade ten Language Arts class has almost completed their project to end our Power and Leadership Unit. I was reading a book on Osama Bin Laden, so I decided to create an “infographic” talking about how he gained power using the Al Qaeda and how his organization compares to the Taliban and ISIS/ISIL. You can find out about infographics and make your own at Piktochart (www.piktochart.com), a website I used to make my infographic. It was fun to make an infographic, as I had experience and there were some very entertaining effects I added to make my infographic very “visual.” The information was enough to combat the visuals, and I have just finished setting it up on one of the classroom boards. I will present it soon as well. I think that I have done a good job in demonstrating my understanding of power and leadership, and also in showing that power can be used in many ways, and not only good. I will reflect on my presentation as well, once it’s done.

For our Power and Leadership project in Language Arts, I had developed a research question already. How did Osama Bin Laden’s minority gain power over a majority of the world? With this question in mind, I began my research a week ago, and now have around 4 pages of research, outlining his early life, how he was influenced, and also his experiences in the Afghan war against the Soviets. However, after some time of note taking, I am now beginning to think about how the Al Qaeda compares to the terrorist groups that exist now, such as ISIS and the Taliban. With these thoughts, I have just changed my research question to “how did Osama bin Laden’s minority gain power over a majority of the world, and how does the Al Qaeda compare to groups such as ISIS and the Taliban?” I am going to continue with the research I am doing now, but also talk about how his actions compare to the actions of the Taliban and ISIS, and whether the Al Qaeda had the same objective in mind as ISIS and the Taliban do now.

For our power and leadership project, which we began two weeks ago, we needed to develop a research question which would be our main focus throughout the unit, until the final assessment task. A research question needs to have some aspects to it. It should be about what you are interested in. The question must not be too broad, and should not be able to be answered easily. For example, if the question is “Who did Osama Bin Laden consult for his medical degree?”, you could answer that with a name. By the way, Osama Bin Laden never got a medical degree. Do not cite me. Anyway, one should always use a research question with the words how, in what ways, and what reasons. These words help narrow down a Thesis to what you need to focus on. With all of these things in mind, I thought of my interests. Osama Bin Laden is interesting, so let’s go with him. But what about him is interesting. Then I thought, and I thought, and I thought. It didn’t take me too long to make a narrow thesis. I came up with this.

“How did Osama Bin Laden’s Minority gain power over a majority of the world?”

It was perfect. It wasn’t too broad, it had my interests, and it needed more than one answer in order to be clarified. I am starting to begin my research on the question, and I think it will be quite interesting to see what the extremist did to terrorize the planet.

I am a tenth grader now, and one step closer to the IB course. I thought, why not chronicle my journey through Language Arts? So that is what I am doing right now. This year in Language Arts (LA), we are beginning with a unit on power and leadership, and see how those two can be connected, as well as used in different ways. In order to analyze them, we had to get one nonfiction book, one fiction book, and watch two movies, and all of these had to display power and leadership in some way. For my nonfiction book, I chose a biography on Osama Bin Laden. He was an Al Qaeda leader that many people hated, but that followers adored. I am in the process of reading it. My fiction book was The Wave, a story based on a true incident in a Californian high school. Basically, the school becomes like Nazi Germany was in the 1940’s when Hitler was Chancellor, but without casualties. I have finished it, and I think it was quite a good read. The two movies I am going to watch are Lincoln and Captain Phillips. I have not watched Lincoln before, but I have watched Captain Phillips, back in early 2014, when I was still in America. All of these resources are tools to provide me with information on what power is, what leadership is, how they merge together, and the ways power and leadership can be used. It seems like a fun unit, with an abundance of freedom with every task. I am looking forward to see what comes next, and whatever comes at me, I’ll be sure to tell you about it.

Today was our Passion Project exhibition, in which I and many other students needed to show our projects that we had been working on throughout the year. Mine was to create a book off of a video game, The Last of Us, created by Naughty Dog. I made my booth look as attractive as possible for a book with a dark tone. Many teachers visited my booth, and quite a few students as well. Many of them were impressed with my textual feat, and I also persuaded them enough to actually want the book. Almost all the people that visited my booth ended up writing their E-mail address down so I could send them a digital copy of the book. I was happy that I had gained my own tiny “fans”, and I will soon send each of them a copy of my Passion Project. It’s been fun.

Rolland stared at the dish below him. “This will grant me immortality?” He asked the undead waiter. He nodded in reply, his head barely intact with his neck. Rolland covered his face with determination, and clenched the fork to his right. He stabbed the phoenix’s leg, and quickly dipped it in the sulfur sauce to his left. He gobbled it up wildly. The undead waiter fainted as he saw his mouth devour the grand meal. It wasn’t soon before he completed his appetizer. He sat up and wiped his face. “Good meal” Rolland said, “but it made my tongue tingle.”