Prom Weekend

I am super excited for this weekend. Today is the day of the prom, Saturday is the day I'm hanging out with my friends (most likely to cause mayhem), Sunday is the day I plan to sleep all day, and Monday is a school holiday so no school. I haven't had a weekend quite as exciting as this in a while. It's one of the first times I've ever planned anything in advanced and I feel great about it! But it probably had to do with my friends being great planners too. I'm just can't wait for this school day to be over.

First on my agenda for this weekend is the prom. Prom preparation has been a little stressful for a bunch of reasons. First I had a lot of anxiety asking my prom date. Even though we're only going as friends, I was still a bit on edge about asking. But my friends made me ask so I never really had a choice. I decided to sing her a song and changed the lyrics to fit a promposal. Luckily she said yes and I was pretty happy too. So next I needed to get a tuxedo. But before I could do that, I needed to find out what color my dates dress was. She said she picked out a red dress, so naturally I ordered my rental tux with a red vest and bow tie to match the dress. But a week before prom, she changes the dress color from red to white and gold! So I freak out a little because I already ordered my tux and I might not be able to change it. But luckily for me, The nice people at Men's Warehouse fixed my order to instead a white vest and black bow tie to contrast her white. THEN I needed to get a corsage, but I realized I needed to get one five days before the prom and I was worried that it was too late! But I found a flower place that put in my order and would have it done by Friday (today) at 3:00 and since I'm getting out of school early, this is ideal. So in the end it looks like everything's gonna be just fine (hopefully).

After prom, my prom group (9 people) plan to just hang out at someone's house. Then Saturday, we will probably spend the day together because I haven't really hung out with them in a while. I've been drowning in school work for the past few weeks and haven't gotten the opportunity to see them. So after that, Sunday will be Eddie day. I'll probably just be lazy in my house as I relax and enjoy my day off. Then Monday is still up in the air for me. Maybe I'll go watch a movie or just do something fun. I'll see if my buds are available to hang. Either way Ill be happy. 

So overall I can't wait for this weekend because of all the memories and stories that will be made. I have some of the best friends in the world and there isn't anything in the world I wouldn't do for them. But in conclusion, I'm gonna have a lot of fun!

Theater

In my entire high school career up until this point, the only extra curricular activity I participated in was the school band, and that was only in 9th grade for me. I thought everything else the school offered in terms of extra curricular activity wasn't for me. I can't sing for my life in the chorus, I'm not comfortable playing all of the sports this school offers, and all of the clubs don't appeal to me. Never in a thousand years did I ever think that the thing in high school that appealed to me the most would be theater.

Until this year, I thought that theater was for dramatic people who are weird and dedicate their time studying Shakespeare or other classical plays. Plus I wasn't very comfortable performing in front of people. It wasn't until my friends started saying that they needed to stay after school for theater rehearsals that I saw exactly what theater actually was. Rather that being a bunch of nerdy people doing lame plays on stage, theater was just friends having fun on stage doing interesting and intriguing performances that were some of the coolest things I've ever seen.

This was the first year I really started hanging out with these theater guys. I've always knew who they were, we've been going to the same school for 6 years now, but this was the first year that I really found out who they really were. Never in a million year did I think that these people, people I never knew were cool, people I thought were just normal other students, would be lifelong friends with me. 

Although I'm not in the theater class at my school, I am involved with some other smaller theater projects happening at the school. Just this year, I participated in the talent show performing a skit, playing the piano, and starring in a commercial. Coming up in April is the Knight of One Acts which is a string of small performances with improve as a major portion of the event. I do plan to take theater next year and I've also talked to the theater teacher her about composing the music for the fall play next year. I'm really stoked about that and I can't wait to get working on that over the summer.

  I can safely say that Theater has made me a different person than I was at the beginning of high school for me. Theater has given me an opportunity to experiment with my personality and the friends I've gained from it have been some of the most fun people I've ever met. It's also made me reconsider what I want to do with my life. For the longest time I wanted to go into computers. Theater has turned me more into a social person. I now have an interest in teaching and possibly being an actor. Overall, Theater has been the most influential thing in high school for me as a person and I can't wait to make people happy while performing.

This week so far.

This week, having had our PSA's played in our English classes at school, We have been getting a lot of positive feedback from students who have seen them. They say that the PSA's were professionally made and they looked really good. We were also having a competition where we pick a random comment on one of the PSA's and that person will win a prize, one of the prizes being a ticket to a basketball game. 

Aside from having presented our PSA's this week, I've decided to talk about just what has happened this week to me. This week I decided to wear Christmas sweaters to school, and not just any Christmas sweater. Like really strange ones. The first one I wore was a sweater of Jesus Christ wearing a birthday hat with the words "Birthday Boy" on his shirt (or whatever they called what they wore back then). The second one I wore was Santa shirtless with the body of a horse. This one was a big hit around the school. The last one i decided to wear was one with a cat wearing a Christmas hat with text that says "Santa Claws." The sweaters were a riot with the teachers and it made me feel good knowing that the sweaters made people feel happy. It really all circles back to my passion: making people happy. 

About my passion project, I really haven't been to active with the project so far. I'm still trying to figure out what my final product is going to be by the end of the year. This has been my problem for sometime and I haven't really found anything to have by the end so I'm kind of in a rut right now. But I'm glad that I've taken this time to reflect on my year so far.

But overall, I've had a good week in school. The PSA's are being presented to students, people were happy to see my wearing my ridiculous sweaters, and I've reflected on my genius time and passion project. I just feel like this week was fantastic!

PSA Project Final

We just finished our unit on PSA's with the final portion being a PSA project. Groups were assigned different topics to create their PSA about, things like digital footprint, online safety, and other things about the internet. Our group was tasked to make a PSA about online safety and the dangers of posting information like names, addresses and schools. After completing our PSA and having watched it, we reflected on the things we did well. Things like music, transitions between different shots, and the overall atmosphere of the PSA. We also went over things that we could of done better. Some things include more time to focus on the PSA, maybe get some spellcheck in there, and also have more people in the introduction shot. Overall, after completing this PSA project, I've taken away a lot of useful information about how to get your message across to many people in an efficient manner. I would definitely like to make more of these in the future if I had to.

PSA Projects

A PSA is an acronym for a public service announcement. PSA's usually are made to present a message or to push for change within a community. Many people know of the Kayla McLachlan abused animal PSA's on TV and usually get sad whenever they see it. PSA's need to be effective when trying to present what they want to present. 

This week in class, we were tasked with making PSA's about being online and just about being a digital citizen. My group was tasked with making a PSA on online safety and thinking about what you post before you post. Our original idea was about a girl chatting with who she thought was a high schooler about homework but then leads into the exchange of some suggestive pictures which then leads to a lot of people getting a hold of the pictures. We pitched the idea to our teacher, but she felt like it was very ambitious. She had said that acting can sometimes turn comical and that if we want to present these to our school, then we would need to really be careful about what we were doing. 

We eventually came up with the idea to scrap that idea in exchange for a new one. Rather than relying on acting, we would focus on jelly beans. The idea was that a predator online is asking someone questions about their life and each answer they give, the pile of jelly beans, representing people that the target could possibly be, gets smaller until there is only one jelly bean left, signifying that the predator has found out who the person is. My group thought that this idea would be much easier and much more effective than our last idea. We got all of the jelly beans shots filmed in one day and editing should take that long. overall, this PSA project has been quite fun and has taught me a little bit about being safe online as well.

Kevin Beaty and Passion Projects

Our DigCit class is teaching us not only how to behave responsibly on the internet, it also teaches us how to use our passions to make change in the community or to get your message out there for people to see. We recently had Kevin Beaty, a freelance artist, photographer, and filmmaker, talk to us through a google hangout, a Skype-like video broadcasting website used to connect people from around the world, because he was in Colorado at the time. we talked about how he used his passion to create a career for him. we also talked about how you may go to college for one thing and end up doing something completely different. It was interesting to get a different perspective on college and how certain passions can lead to successful futures. 

I'm not sure I've talked about this yet, but just in case, I'll talk about it. On the week of November 5th, my class held a community showcase in which we displayed on poster board our projects so far and what we hope to do in the future with the project. Think of it like a science fair where people roam around and stumble upon different projects while the people behind the projects take about them. Just in this case instead of science it was our passion projects. My project went very well, but I have to say, it could have been a lot better. I have a problem with procrastination and I feel it could have been more professional. But, on the other hand, my public speaking skills were astounding. I've had people tell me that I speak comfortably and that I hold eye contact with the people I as talking to. Overall, everything we've talked about this week and last week have strengthened my drive toward what I'm really passionate about and I will continue this goal of mine until the day I die.

Kevin Beaty's Website: http://kevinjbeaty.com/cover/#start

First Quarter Reflection

This week in our DigCit class we were discussing some of our progress we've made on our Passion Projects. This week was all about discussing the things we have yet to do and things we have exceeded on with our projects. For me, what I've accomplished is I've rounded my plan for some of the deliverables for the end of the year. I found that I've been slacking on some of my project. I have not been up to date on my deliverables and I understand that I need to be better with those things. It's not the fact that I don't want to do the's just I always think that I'll do it later. I've always had a problem with procrastination and a problem with using that as an excuse for myself not to do work. Just writing about this issue now makes me realize that it needs to stop. And unlike times in the past where I've said that I was going to stop, I now can know that when I say it this time, I mean it.

Aside from me identifying my flaws this week, I'me also learned that this project won't be as hard to complete as I previously thought. Whenever I here the word "project," I think of some history or science project that usually take weeks to complete through rigorous work. Because this class is not like traditional classes, the project has no "rubric," just guide lines for what needs to be done by the end of the year. It's really centered around goals you set for yourself rather than goals your teacher assigns to you.

Looking toward the future, I have made little progress on my final product for the end of the year and, as stated previously, I've decided that I'm going to change that starting today (October 22nd, 2015). Though my final goal is still unclear, my passion isn't. I will continue to work toward global happiness one step at a time. Of my scheduled bookmarks, I have met first quarters goals about 50% of the way. I am going to make things in the second quarter different because my drive to get work done has been lit. My plan for next week is finish some of my first quarter deliverables and start on some of my second quarter deliverables.