This week went by extremely fast and yet, it still felt like it lasted forever. It was the week before spring break, which meant I had a lot to do and very little motivation to do it. On top of this, I have also been hit pretty hard with some senoritis recently, which definitely doesn't help anything. This shortage of motivation reminded me of how important it is to stay on track, no matter how much I just want to daydream about spring break.
Because I wasn't alone in my procrastination (my group for the project was in the same boat as me), we ended up needing to do a whole lot of our project on Wednesday and Thursday, the days leading up to the due date. We ended up rushing a lot of the finishing details on our website. We were never able to go back through the entire project together and make sure everything was coherent or perfect any of it. This is one of those things that really bugs me because I like to make sure the little details all make sense and make sure everything is just right on the project but we didn't allow ourselves the time to do those things. This past week was a good reminder of how important time management is. It's a lot easier to do 10-20 minutes of work instead over a span of a week rather than 2 hours of work in one night. I also know time management is going to be an extremely beneficial skill to have when I go off to college so I'm glad I had this week to remind me of its benefits.
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This week I was reminded of how nice it is to do group projects. During the last two trimesters, I did most of my projects on my own because I typically find it easier to just do it all myself. However with this project, I didn't really have much of a choice considering each group needed a different person for each role. I had kind of forgotten how nice it was to not have to do the entire project alone. I was able to focus on just one side of the project, which gave me the opportunity to really make sure I did a good job. At the same time, if I felt kind of stuck or I was struggling to make a decision, I was able to just ask one of my group members for help.
Having other people help me with the project also made the project seem a lot more doable. Instead of stressing out about whether or not I would be able to do everything myself before the project was due, my partners and I were able to split it up evenly to make sure everyone would do a little bit extra to help get it done. Last trimester, I kind of struggled with my reading. I really enjoyed the book I read for the third marking period but it was just hard for me to find time to actually sit down and read it. My second book though, was just really slow and boring so I never wanted to find time to sit down and read it. This past week I was able to kind of rekindle my love for reading. We had to pick a book for our project and my group picked The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I was a little on edge about it at first because it didn't really seem like the kind of book I typically read. It's about omens and other religions I don't know much about and it kind of sounded like some weird voodoo stuff I just wasn't into. When I actually started to read it though, I found it pretty interesting. It was the type of book I wanted to keep reading, not because of school but because I just thought it was interesting. So far, it's not super thrilling or crazy, but it's kind of like a feel-good book that just makes you want to keep reading. I guess this week I was reminded of how important it is not literally not judge a book by it's cover and reach for something you may not typically want to read.
At the beginning of the year, when I heard that we would be doing an entire presentation without bullet points or notes, I was terrified. That was such a daunting idea, considering I had only ever read off of my slides for presentations in other classes. Now though, when it's actually time to do the Pecha Kucha presentation, I'm not worrying about it. I actually think it's one of the easier presentations we've done. This year I tried really hard to make my presentations similar to a TED Talk, which if you look at their slides, they have very few words or distractions on their slides. In a way, this means a Pecha Kucha is kind of a step down for me. They have a lot more structure to them. I don't have to worry about how I split up my slides or how long I spend on an idea because now I only have so many slides and so much time. Before when I did my presentations, I didn't need to worry about my idea or what I wanted to talk about as much as I had to focus on when and how exactly I wanted to say something. Now that I'm given a specific amount of time and space, I don't need to worry about deciding it myself.
With all of this being said, the Pecha Kucha presentation will still bring me new challenges. I have to learn how to be extremely precise with my words and there is very little room for error if I forget what I want to say. I need to spend a lot of time getting to know my presentation and figuring out just what I want to say for each and every slide. I was able to really enjoy this week. After all of the mess of creating, deleting, and recreating my project, I was finally able to complete it. I got to sit back and enjoy everyone else's hard work as well. It was interesting to see how everyone else interpreted the project. Some people went for a more personal believe, while others took a more general and universal approach. I loved how everyone had different ideas and seeing what each person was passionate about was really interesting. Some people I thought I knew decently well, but then realized there was a lot of background details revealed during the project. Some of these things are crucial to who they are. It made me realize that no matter how well you may know someone, there's always more to learn. Everyone has a history and a past that makes them who they are. I guess the big thing I learned from this week was how different everyone's lives truly are. It was just a really good reminder to remember that everyone has different reasons for their beliefs and actions. I thought this project was a really great way to help everyone feel heard and understood. For my link this week, I used one of the TIB videos that I really liked. I know this has been a common theme in my blog posts lately, but this week was kind of a mess. Most people worked on the video part of their "This I Believe" projects, I on the other hand, spent the whole week deleting and rewriting my paper. I just couldn't figure out what I wanted to do. It was weird because I felt like I was working so hard but I had nothing to show for it. I just wanted to get it right the first time. Each time I deleted it, it was a new struggle because that meant I would have to redo the whole thing, but I also didn't want my piece to be anything but perfect.
I knew throughout the whole week that I was falling further and further behind, and I would end up having to spend my entire weekend working on this project. The more I thought about it though, the more I realized that it was okay. I would rather spend tons and tons of time working on my project and creating something I'm truly proud of, rather than turning in something just so I can be done. It's okay to start over, even if you're already 4 days into a project. If you know way deep down that you need to switch your plan, then just do it. I know this link is technically looking at starting over on a much deeper, philosophical way, but if you don't think about it too much, it still works with my blog post. I wasn't at school Tuesday or Wednesday of this week, and then my teacher wasn't here on Thursday or Friday. This means that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. I really don't know anything about the "This I Believe" project we're working on because I haven't heard an introduction or any examples or really even had the chance to listen to my teacher explain what I'm supposed to do. I was able to go online and watch previous people's videos, which did give me some insight as to the general idea of the project. Because of my absence though, I'm forced to work completely on my own, without any of my teacher's insight or direction. I have to go with my gut and decide what I think works best. It'll be interesting to see what happens on Monday, when I walk into class with a project that my teacher doesn't know anything about, but I have to trust that I am capable enough to work on my own.
Below I linked one of the videos I watched to help me get a better understanding of what exactly this project is supposed to be. When we did the debate in class this week, I was pretty silent for the most part. I was in catch-up mode from missing the beginning of class but I was still able to get some valuable information out of the project. Even though I didn't speak much, I made sure to still focus on what was being said and what ideas were being shared. It was interesting too, because I originally said I agreed that there should be more regulations even though I was kind of on the fence about the whole thing. By being able to hear each side of the argument, I had the chance to understand each position. It really helped me to make my overall decision of which side I was on.
As weird as it sounds, this whole project actually helped me see why counterarguments are so important. Sure, they make your argument stronger, but by researching arguments against your position, you're able to understand why you belief what you believe, better. These last few weeks have been pretty busy in AP lit. I spent a lot of time at home during snow days, which is really fun and relaxing, except for when you have to worry about how you're going to finish your group project if you never see your group members. We had to learn how to create a coherent presentation about a complicated subject without ever having time to actually practice what each person was going to say or knowing exactly how to transition from one idea to the next. I think something that really helped us out was how we worked. We made sure to spend plenty of time working out how we wanted to write our paper and the different examples and ideas we wanted to use. By spending so much of our time working together on that part of the project, we were able to speed through our presentation a little bit more. We all knew what we were talking about because we worked so hard on our paper. I think this was a big reason we did so well on our presentation. Even though it was extremely nerve racking that I didn't really know what my partners were going to say while they were presenting their parts, I knew whatever they said it would fit with our theme because we all knew what our paper was about.
Below I linked a page that talks about different ways to create an effective, informational group presentation. This week we worked a lot on our deconstruction theory and relating it to King Lear. We got our entire proposal finished and we even planned out the order we want our paper written in, down to the exact details we want to talk about. Because of this, we were pretty relaxed when the guest speaker came in to talk to the class. This feeling was quickly diminished when the first thing the speaker said to us was, "Oh, deconstruction, that's my least favorite out of all of the theories." Literally the expert, the person who actually knows what they are doing, told us they found the theory extremely difficult. I knew instantly that we had done something wrong, because we thought our theory was pretty simple. Basically, what we learned is that we did the whole thing wrong. We focussed on parts that didn't matter and we didn't even look into the stuff that deconstruction is meant to focus on.
Deconstruction is meant to look into the language used to write a piece of literature; the specific words and phrases that keep popping up in the writing and what those mean in a more symbolic setting. We looked at it as understanding the characters and what their actions meant on a deeper level. Even though, yes it was frustrating to have to rewrite our entire proposal, I think what our group learned this week is really interesting. I had never really thought language was super important, I just thought words were words and that was it. I didn't realize that one specific word could hold the entire meaning of a piece of literature. Below I linked a page that talks about the actual meaning of the Deconstruction theory. |
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