Reflection ii, Final...

Apologies for the late update. I have already finished my final draft of my short story, Homeland: The Flames of the Neglected, so I might as well reflect on my Twenty Percent Project. In the beginning, I chose this project as a driving force for me to finish this story that I had in my mind for quite some time. And, because of that, I am grateful to my past self for doing that, for now I learned much more than just improving my writing skills. For one, I learned how to type without looking at the keyboard, and two, you have to make time for yourself to do the things that you love and are passionate about. As I was planning and writing this story, I thought to myself, "How will my friends or other people will react to this story?" and that was the drive that allowed me to continue forward. For my classmates, friends, and future students who will somehow find this post: do what you love the most. Thank you for this great year.

And last, but not least...

Homeland: Flames of the Neglected is ready for public view. One story down, many more to go!

Elora the Tactician signing out. 

Reflections 13-15

Okay, so for the past few weeks, Mickey and I have been working on creating a website for our 20% Time project. I had not written reflections 13 and 14 until now because we had been working on this website (the only foods we've made have been simple green smoothies and the brownies we make all the time). In Web Design, the final project was to make a website with at least 11 pages, so we used this opportunity to create something to talk about the Paleo Diet and some of our favorite recipes. We included a separate page for each recipe, which were our almond flour brownies, scrambled eggs, and coconut four waffles, just to name a few. It was fun to make this website because it combined what we learned about web design with what we taught ourselves in Humanities. We will try to find a way to show our website during our final presentation.

Reflection XV

Sorry for the late reflection, I forgot we needed one for last weekend. Anyway I have taken a break in learning new stuff so I can go and program the text adventure game I plan to use for my final project to display some of the stuff that I have learned. However, the game is entirely HTML because I was not going to have to time to learn anything else in time to get this project done. So, no JavaScript. Only HTML. That is all for this last reflection.

Reflection 13

On week 13 I put all of my supplies together. I had continued knitting with the same color and teaching my little cousin what I can already learned so I didn't have much stuff left. I still had my big blue yarn because she bought her own. I also put my pancho away. I decided to bring it into class instead of posting pictures to give a demonstration of what I had learned. Well 14 I starting making my presentation.

Reflection 15

This is the last reflection for my 20% time project. I've been working for a pretty long time on this project. I'm glad to say that I've accomplished 1 of my goals. I am decent at juggling now, not great or bad. Just decent. For my presentation I decided doing a video would be so much more stress free than juggling live. I would probably mess up 1000 times in front of everyone. Also the average juggler can do it for about 20-30 seconds. So I will just see how many cascades I can catch in 30 seconds since I' not great at going continuously. I would say the biggest help to me this week was this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Acuaa8wFDsg

This video showed me wall juggling, which trains your muscles the exact movements of juggling in air. It was great and helped me a lot. This project was an interesting one and I'm glad I did it but also happy it's over.

Reflection 15

Hello all. This week Phoebe and I have gone a different route. Since its the last week of the marking period instead of making something we've decided to make our own website. This website consists of all the foods we've made and blogs underneath them. This was originally a project for another class so we decided to combine the two aspect into one. I have to admit creating this website was really tedious. I took a lot of planning but in the end it was worth it. I think the most difficult part is making sure you are organized. When creating a website if you miss one step the entire thing can become messed up. It was fun combining our cooking skills and website making into one thing. We will show you the website in out presentation!

2nd Semester Reflection 15

This week I just spent working on my presentation and practicing. It's coming along nicely. I can't wait to present! This is seriously my last blog of the year, so it's been great. This project has really shown me that I can achieve anything I set my mind to, and for that, I am very thankful. Signing off (for real, this time). Thanks for reading!

Reflection 15

This Thursday, I am to present this 20% Project that I have spent the last several weeks working on. Moving towards said presentation, I have some concerns; chief among them is the fact that my laptop does not have the RGB port that the classroom projector requires. Without my laptop, I cannot access my story on the browser-instance-specific Twine application. Some of my presentation was based around that game, and it will be less engaging for the audience. However, I can work the presentation without it; as it is too late for minor tweaking within the PowerPoint, I'll have to rely on my... presentation skills... alone (*bursts out laughing*). I'm not looking forward to this presentation by any means and I feel that I lack any tangible evidence to support my learning of JavaScript (because some program forgot to mention that Java doesn't have a built-in user interaction feature). In any case, it's too late to turn back now. Wish me luck orange "Publish" button in Blogger's top right corner... wish me luck.

Reflection 12

Week 12 I thought and thought of what to do with the blanket I bought and I came up with a wacky idea but it worked! I made it into a poncho. Sounds awful, I know but it came out super cute. All I did was cut it into a square and cut out a hold for my head. The only thing I needed a lot of help with was  tailoring it. The straight lines were much easier than the circle for the head. Although you have to be more precise with a straight line, it was hard getting the fabric to turn on the machine. I will bring this in for my presentation.

Reflection 11

Week 11, I visited a thrift store to find some cool stuff I can add on to. Thrift stores are easy because the clothes are super cheap so if I ruin them it's okay. I bought a really long dress to hem. I also saw a blanket that had a really cool pattern on it. I started of the dress first and hemmed it to about my knees but it came out really crocked and uneven. So I asked my friends mom for help and cut it down a little shorter and it came out really good because we got the same thread color. It came out a little short because I had to fix it but it looks really nice. I still have not worn it.

Reflection XV: The One With a Final Set

Greetings, earthlings. 

Only thing new is that I have been inspired. I've done some research on intuitive eating and it really seems like something I could do. For those of you that I have no idea what I'm talking about: https://www.intuitiveeating.com/content/what-intuitive-eating

As you may know, this will be my last reflection. I have very much enjoyed working on my 20% project this semester. Makes me glad I decided to change my focus three weeks in. I plan to continue my workouts throughout the summer, and hopefully throughout my life. I could go on about how much this project has changed my view of myself and of the world, but I'm sure no one cares. I've been at this for fifteen weeks, so here are my measurements as of today:
height - 5 ft. 6 in.
weight - 118.4 lbs
chest - 34 in.
waist - 25.5 in.
hip - 31 in.
thigh - 19 in.
calf - 12.5 in.
arm - 10.5 in.
neck - 13 in.
*all measurements taken at largest point of specified body part

And here are my pictures this week:

Previous pictures for comparisons (remember that this is technically my twelfth week because I started three weeks into this project):
Week 1 pictures - http://twentypercent15.blogspot.com/2015/03/reflection-iii.html 
Week 5 pictures - http://twentypercent15.blogspot.com/2015/04/reflection-viii-one-with-pictures.html 

You may have noticed some changes; I certainly have.

As for my 20% presentation, it is finished. I'll be adding my pictures after I post this last reflection, and I will then be ready to present on Monday.

Farewell, lovelies. It's been a wild ride.

Reflection 15

This week, I finished learning all the Hindi alphabets. I prepared for my presentation tomorrow. I will be talking about my inspiration and what I learned throughout the whole process of learning Hindi. I will also talk about some of the challenges I faced during the process and how it was different than my previous twenty percent project, which was learning Kannada. This is the last reflection and I want to say that I enjoyed learning something that I always wanted. I wish to continue learning more in the future.

Reflection 15: Revenge of the Reflection

Well... that's it, huh?

Song is done, and I've presented it. So what have I learned?

For one thing, I am a horrible presenter, but that is besides the point.

Learning the FL Studio program was an interesting process. Throughout it, I was worried that I would eventually become frustrated, that I would just give up in the middle and say that I can't do it. But it didn't happen. I kept my cool. I didn't even try to keep my cool while working on this project.

I suppose that doing what I enjoy leads me to less likely become upset about it if things don't go my way. I'm usually prone to getting flustered and confused whenever I do any project of the sort. I got especially frustrated when I did practiced the piano when I was younger, even so when I was in middle school. So... what was different?

Some mental conditioning was one thing that kept me focused and more mentally stable. Although it was a long process, creating the song didn't feel tedious. If anything, I enjoyed experimenting with the noise, seeing what would sound the best.

I now notice that i'm talking more about the mental challenges of the project than the project itself, so let's move on to that instead.

The song's reception was mixed to positive, at least form what I've gathered. I know that the quality of the song isn't the most important aspect of the project, but I was pleasantly surprised to see how well the song was received from my peers, especially it being my first song. The changes I had to make in the process didn't hinder progress that much, considering that this was purely experimental. The keyboard couldn't be used be used because of half-second delays, and the length had to be doubled because it felt incredibly short in hindsight.

I certainly want to create more music over the summer, hopefully up exponentially better quality than my first song. That's the point, right? Improvement.

This will be the final blog post from me, Alex, A.K.A The Smorski.

If anyone reading this is interested in listening to the song, here is a Soundcloud link to it.

https://soundcloud.com/the-smorski/humanities

Alex, out.

Reflection 15

So for my final reflection of the semester, I'm happy to say that I finished my presentation and with that, I have completed my 20% project. I am proud to say that I am walking away from this project with more useful skills than perhaps my last 20% project, but I still happy with what I learned from both projects. I really enjoyed 20% time, since it gave me the space and freedom to explore certain passions of mine that I wanted to pursue for quite a while. Also, since I've gotten a start in both of these areas, I can go on to college and really put them into use and get even better.

reflection 15

Throughout the week I sent it on a self evaluation and see what I did wrong with my project. I learned that I spent too much time learning rather than doing. Also I have to consider that I dove into this project with no knowledge or experience of code or app making. So this was a week that I just freshened up my PowerPoint and game to present for class on Tuesday.

Reflection 14

The due date for the project is coming closer and my game isn't coming out the way that I intended it to be. There are multiple flaws and errors that can be fixed with time and my dream of an application unfortunately died. It died because it costs about 200.00 to submit a game on the App Store I thought with the software I used there was a loophole into submitting the app but unfortunately there is not. Hopefully in the following week I rap up my app and implement everything that I learned so that it can be presentable on my presentation day.

Reflection 15

I started to get my presentation in order this class period, and I took notes so I know what I want to talk about when I present. I think I'm ready to talk about what I learned and what I did. I'm going to do a PP presentation about the background of yoga, modern yoga, and the benefits. All throughout I will talk about what I did, and how it affected me. 

I think I didn't learn as much as I wanted to, but it's something I'll be continuing so I'm not very worried as to what I got out of it now. I definitely have an understanding as to what is desired from doing yoga, and how it came to be. All I need to get caught up on is doing yoga, and learning the asanas. 

Reflection #14

       This week was really busy, and I honestly didn't accomplish anything. The week was consumed with prom planning, prom, and the like. Even still, I could have made time to draw, so this is mainly just laziness. I really only draw when I feel like it, which definitely isn't the best way to accomplish something. That's how I did the first semester 20% project, too. Time management has always been the biggest issue for me with this project. I think because it's a long term project without one distinct goal, I find myself completing it at my leisure. I really need to remember that even though there aren't any specific milestones I have to reach, I should still be making consistent progress. After all, this is a school project and I don't have a lifetime to showcase my work. Later on in life I will, but as of right now, I need to be looking towards that final due date, not viewing it as something that I can just do whenever the mood strikes me.

Reflection 14

Last week, there wasn't much progress made in terms of my 20% project, but that was out of my own pure laziness. The most I did last week was set up the look and basic outline of my presentation, since its due date is coming up soon. Later, I planned on filling in the information when I felt like I was up to the task. Another thing that I will attribute the lack of progress to is prom, since it was on Friday and it took up more of my attention than anything. Therefore, any progress would have to be done after prom weekend, when all the partying is out of my system and I can finally focus on work again. However, I am excited to create my presentation because I'm glad to be ending the year off with a positive outcome on 20% project.

Reflection 10

I started running into some trouble week 10 of my twenty percent time project. I realized something in myself I guess I was having a hard time coming to grip with before, I cannot come up with solid ideas and go through with them. Its almost as though I think of a beginning and I think of an end but I cant think of the middle plan to get me there. I was really hard getting over that because I really just felt like recruiting a bunch of people to follow my directions as I tell them what to do (haha). Instead however, I sat with my mom and thought of a reasonable game plan for what I wanted to create. I came up with a bunch of doable ideas. First I decided on making shorts, from already made jeans or a pair of really cute pants, but I couldn't decide on an easy shirt design right away. My mom suggested I make a simple crop top or tube top to practice before making any crazy moves.

Reflection 12 & 13 It is time

I spent the last two 20% Time(s) searching for all of my images for my presentation. I had to edit a few images for the presentation background so thats cool too. There isn't much to say, I'm pretty much finally done!

Weekly Journal 15

         Oopsies. For some reason I thought that Journal 14 was the final one.
This week for twenty percent time I am finalizing my presentation. Being that I present on Monday, I need to be as ready as I can be as possible. With that being said, I am going to practice and rehearse as much as I can over the weekend. Due to the SAT's on Saturday, my instructor and I have had to make other arrangements and hopefully it will all work out. I am very nervous.
I am still unsure of whether or not I should bring my guitar in to class or make a video/audio. Reason being because I have a soft case for my guitar and my bus is always packed and I would hate for it to get destroyed. I will have to see.
I hope that by the end of this weekend, I will finally get the hang of playing the song. If only I had rhythm... oh well! One must make do and I will try my best.
Can't wait!

Reflection 16

I may have failed at doing my overall goal for the end of this project, but I didn't fail at finishing the project presentation! I'm pretty much done already. I feel like at this point I'm just going to make it prettier and more enjoyable to watch and view and such. Thanks for sticking with me throughout this journey!! So long and farewell!

Reflection 14: Tardiness Breeds Tardiness, Apparently

This past week, my schedule was packed with projects, tests, assignments, and unavoidable personal events that I could not have predicted; as such, I did not have much time to work on my 20% Project. All the same, I did continue writing it and even went back to the course after I figured out how to debug the old "Rock-Paper-Scissors" game I coded and finally get it working (I had not realized that I  was required to define a certain variable, as I had not realized it was a user-created variable and not a default command). However, while conducting research online, I found something that I probably should have researched sooner but that--in all fairness--the program I used neglected to tell me: JavaScript has no pre-existing user interface. The only way to get it to interact efficiently with users or (and this is where the trouble arises) to get it to display text on the screen. While it is theoretically possible to create such an interface in JavaScript, doing so is beyond me as the only "display-text" command I have been taught only shows the text in the console, which is not accessible by a user when playing. As such, coding the game and playing it with the script of code during the presentation will be impossible. I don't want to make all the time I spent writing the game to be useless; as such, I plan on taking people through the Twine-script and explain which command is assigned to which action in the game (explaining such things as using random number generators and variables to create a character's "statistics" or items).
This week, I began working on the presentation and will have it finished by Friday; I also began editing the game's text and will have it all but completed by Friday as well. Until then, until then.

Weekly Journal 14

         This is my last twenty percent time journal. I am genuinely a little sad just because the entire idea of twenty percent time gave me a chance and the motivation to step out of my comfort zone and learn something new. This past week on twenty percent time I began preparing my presentation. I plan to show the little that I am now able to do on Monday when it is my turn to present in front of the class. I can now tune a guitar using an app as aid, and I am able to maintain rhythm for a little bit (30 seconds or so which is a big deal for me) while playing about 3 chords. I will not be presenting the entire song. Only the beginning because to be honest, that's as far as I went. Of course I touched on the rest of the song and have played through it, but I do not feel confident enough yet to perform the entire song in front of everyone knowing that it is not even relatively decent.
Okay, so I have no rhythm. I've learned that and have accepted that. However, just because twenty percent time is over, does not mean that I will not continue learning how to play the guitar. In fact, having no rhythm is what is motivating me to step out of my comfort zone, believe in myself, and try to push through this difficult task.
With the little time that I have left, I plan to give it my all and prepare a good presentation for Monday.
See you all then!

Reflection 14

This is the last reflection ever! Now I won't have a way to show my progress which probably won't help. However, fitness is going really well right now. I've become super organized and created time for exercise even though there is a lot of pressure at school. I usually take my dog on a walk around 5:30 am when I wake up for about half a mile. It's good exercise and I like doing it in the morning when it's cool. Also, I am eating healthier and creating balanced meals has become an easier task. I don't make it to the gym everyday but when I do, I really put work in and it makes me feel great. This way I'm getting a break from school and still being productive. I never imagined myself being able to do all this before. As for my final presentation, I am done with the power point completely. I think it turned out nicely and will be a good aid for presenting. However, I still need to practice actually presenting. I get really very stressed before any presentation, but I feel a little confident in this one. As long as I'm prepared, I should do well! 

Reflection #13

This weekend I decided to put my skills to use. I wanted to make a dish that I could bring to Phoebes birhtday party. Since I know that she enforces strict paleo guideline I decided to get a recipe from paleogrubs.com and make something for her. I decided to make a blueberry lemon cake. I must admit, I made this entire thing by msyelf, however, it didnt come out as well as i hoped it would.

Ingredients:
2/3 cup coconut flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
Pinch of salt
5 eggs
1/3 cup almond milk
1/4 cup honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp lemon zest
1/2 cup fresh blueberries

3/4 cup coconut cream, chilled
Juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tbsp honey
Dash of vanilla

The most difficult part about baking this cake was making the frosting. It was difficult to make it the right texture and weight. In addition, i had trouble with baking the batter to perfection. Overall, i was excited that i finally baked on my own. I made mistakes that i wont next time i attempt to do this. Anyways that's the point of learning. 

Reflection #14

The end of senior year is hectic. This weekend I wasn't able to work on my project because I had prom on Friday and then I went to Wild wood for the entire weekend. This weekend, however, it is forecasted that it will rain for the most part, therefore, I will use this time to work on my project and make a meal.    

Reflection 14

This week I got to do more yoga than usual and it was a pretty good experience. I think once you look past some of the difficult poses, it's actually enjoyable, and afterwards you feel more relaxed rather than during.
I had some free time in fitness today and I did yoga. I was feeling pretty tired earlier, but after fitness I felt pretty energized and happier. It's nice to see the positive effects, and I think it's encouraging. Overall, I'm satisfied with the experience and can't wait to share it with others.
Although, I don't have any poses memorized perfectly, I usually just follow the videos and do whatever I remember afterwards peacefully. I'm going to try to get some down pretty well to maybe demonstrate or explain at least, because I don't think I'd be comfortable doing yoga in front of people.

Reflection XIV

So this week for 20% time, I am basically just doing random things at this point writing random code with HTML and JavaScript and for the presentation I will just display the different things because it is all compatible. I am not really sure what my goal was anymore because I sort of threw it out the window when I stopped using Khan Academy. Anyway I had a lot of fun and I do indeed plan to continue doing this on my free time.

Reflection

This week, I returned back to the gym. It felt weird transitioning back into the gym atmosphere, mostly because different environments are always different. After a while of home exercising and running, I got accustomed to the outside environment. I find that I focus better outside than on a treadmill, even though I cannot control my speed as quantitatively. However, instead I actually run faster with the fresh air and the scenery around me. Despite that, I do indeed miss the routine of the gym. For weight and strength training, it is much easier and simpler to use the gym's equipment. With newly found research on Melissa Bender's fitness website. I can look for high cardio intensity workouts that also build strength and tone. For the weekend, my new gym body was put to use as I went to the beach! I found myself much more comfortable with my body than before. Although physical results might not be as obvious, I can still tell myself.

Reflection XIV: The One With Cat Freaking Out Because Finals Are Approaching

Apologies, but I am going to have to delay my pictures another week. My camera battery is dead and I can't seem to find my charger. Anyway, here are some updates:

• I have been noticing changes in a few more areas. As I mentioned, my stomach is a bit flatter and I'm kinda getting a butt. Other than that, my collarbones and hip bones are much more noticeable now and I've been obtaining some indents in a few places. Also, my calves are returning.
• I have gotten a bit lazy with my cardio recently, but I am still getting at least one HIIT in everyday.
• I've also been finding myself doing extra calf raises and squats (and sometimes crunches) everyday. Idk, I am just loving the benefits.
• Still haven't found avocado ice cream.
• I have been loving my body recently.

Other than all this, I've been preparing my presentation. I'm presenting on the first day (June 8), so I'm a bit nervous. My presentation will be similar to that of my midterm-- I've created a PPT and I just stuck all my pictures, goals, etc. in it. It's nowhere near done yet because I've been overwhelmed with tests and projects and I even have my geo/trig final this week. Haha, yeah. My death has arrived. Wish me luck.

2nd Semester Reflection 14

This week I made edamame, grilled chicken with cucumber - and - tomato salad, and nutella drop cookies.  The edamame was far too spicy for my tastes - my nose and tongue were burning for hours! The grilled chicken was light, fresh, and delicious; I can easily envision myself eating the dish in the future. The nutella drop cookies were very easy to make but still were excellent. I'm very happy with the way this project has worked out - I've learned a lot and have made culinary progress. While I am still a long way off, I've given myself a great base with which to work. I will spend the last few days preparing my 20% project, I'm not too far from finishing. Signing off of the blog for senior year - wow, what a weird thing to say. It's been great. So long!