20% Project Update

Alright, so just a quick recap.. My 20% project is trying to get into region band as a timpani player, so I practice a lot and I video tape as much as I can.  Its been about 8 weeks, and I have been working in the band room a lot, along with working with Mr. Walter.  For those of you who don't know who he is, he was a chorus teacher in our middle school who is a very gifted percussionist.  A major obstacle of mine was definitely the piece itself.  The piece that I have to play turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be, so... oh well.  The reason why it turned out to be really hard was because of all of the tuning changes.  There are at least 30 of them, and I have very little time to do them while I'm playing it.  I just have to keep practicing and try my hardest.  I'm just happy because everyone has the same piece, so hopefully, it will be hard for everyone.  I'll try to keep you updated.

Johnny Depp: Modern Day Outlier

Johnny Depp- An outlier in modern society. During his childhood,

Johnny Depp’s family ended up moving over 20 times and eventually settled in Miramar, Florida. His mother divorced when he was 15, and then remarried. His second father was Robert Palmer, who was a big role model for Johnny. When Johnny Depp was 12, he was given a guitar. He started to join various garage bands and played very frequently. A year after his mother’s divorce, he dropped out of high school to play in a band. The opportunity that introduced him to fame came through that band. Depp tried to go back to his high school two weeks later, but his principal told him to follow his dreams. Johnny Depp moved around bands until he went to the Rock City Angels. He married the bass player’s sister, Lori Anne Allison, in December 1983. His wife introduced him to Nicholas Cage, who advised him to pursue an acting career. His acting career was very successful with a total of 44 movies so far. Johnny Depp’s first major film was A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984. He is known for the Pirates of the Caribbean series. In the book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about success coming from 10,000 hours of work.  Johnny Depp has been acting from 1984 to 2013, which has definitely covered 10,000 hours. Over his acting career, Johnny Depp is now worth 350 million dollars. As you can see, his principal gave him his opportunity and provided the gateway towards the next part of his life. If that principal had let him come back to school, then he wouldn't have become famous or pursued an acting career. He was very lucky to get this opportunity, and he maximized it, which is why he is an outlier.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Depp

http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/actors/johnny-depp-net-worth/

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000136/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_movies_has_Johnny_Depp_been_in_ever

End of the School Year!

The school year is officially over, and it still doesn't feel like summer break yet.  Aside from the new sport that I'm starting, golf, nothing seems to have changed.  In some ways, I feel like I have wrapped everything up and will not need to worry about school for 3 months.  In other ways, I feel like graduating middle school is just the beginning.  I guess that both of those are true.

Summer will be a time of reflection for me, at least until my body figures out that it is summer.  Then, I'll hit the pool.  This will probably be my last post of the 2012-2013 school year, unless I keep you updated about my course at NJIT.  Anyway, I hope that everyone has a great summer, and that you all use your time well.

Writing Prompt ~ Cat or Rembrandt

The prompt in question is replying to a quote said by David Markson.  That is "If forced to choose Giacometti once said, he would rescue a cat from a burning building before a Rembrandt."  I personally agree with him.  Even if I was a huge art fanatic, I would still save the cat.  I value life a lot more than I value possessions.  I feel that this is the right decision morally.  Everyone should seek to preserve and protect all life as best as they can.

If someone chooses the cat, they might be considered as crazy, or someone who is opposed to loss of life.  If someone chooses the painting, then they have a great love of material possessions that would outweigh their instincts to save a beating heart.  I chose to save the cat instead of the painting, and I believe that my choice is the right one.

A Very Good Essay and the Meaning of a "Deep Answer"

Yesterday, my ROGATE class read the essay, Joyas Voladoras, by Brian Doyle.  For me, it really accents how people live their lives, and how their decisions can affect the lives of others as well.  It also shows how different animals (maybe symbolizing people) have different lifestyles, and how their lives are changed.  The hummingbird, the main animal in the article, has an eccentric and very fast paced life, but has the life span of 2 years.  The animal in comparison is a tortoise.  They have a slow lifestyle and never really move fast.  They have a lifespan of 200 years.  Humans are in the middle, and appropriately live anywhere from 70 to 100 years.  This essay takes on a depressing tone, but it makes me feel hopeful and optimistic to learn that I can mold my life into what I want it to be.  My favorite sentence in the essay is only 9 words long.  "So much held in a heart in a lifetime."  Hows that for deep?

Quotes

I am putting a sampling of different kinds of quotes on my blog and will react to them.  I will try to do the best that I can.

Funny Quote:
My fake plants died because I did not pretend to water them.
-Mitch Hedburg

My reaction to this quote is...  I can't possibly write anything deep and meaningful about this..  All I can say is that having fake plants would keep me from doing a lot of chores.

Serious Quote:
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubts.
-Mark Twain

This quote makes so much sense but it reacts to the arrogance in people.  If you believe that you know everything, you will always encounter someone smarter than you.  Your arrogance can be embarrasing if you are proved to be wrong.

These are just two quotes that I found interesting.

"Everyone's Free to Wear Sunscreen"

This is a name of a popular song by Baz Luhrmann giving advice to children.  There are certain lines in the song that I believe are really important to pay attention to.  He says, "Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders."

In a way, this could be interpreted as saying that life is more enjoyable and altogether better when people are younger.  I want to take a different perspective on this quote.  I believe that this means that all children should try their best to appreciate life as they possess it, and to not squander it.  It is easy for children not to appreciate their childhood, but when they can compare it to their future, they will wish for their childhood back again.

My advice to everyone reading this is to cherish all of their prized possessions and never take anything for granted.  I'm not telling everyone to be greedy, but usually, people don't realize the worth of their possessions or their families until they are taken away.  I never would have realized how precious my cousins are and how much they mean to me if one of my cousins hadn't died.  She was around my age, but she died very young.  I didn't know any better at the time, but there is something about death that finds a way into any situation in life, always reminding you of what life could have been, but will never be now.  Death is often just a sad experience that happens to everyone, but can be looked at from any point of view.  I try to view it as an opportunity for a family to grow closer together instead of each person wallowing in their own world of self pity.  Life is a simple yet intricate experience that can sometimes be wild, or it can be soothing.  It's like being a passenger in a car that is on a race track, but you have never seen the race track before in your life.  You are being hurled around unexpected corners and all you can do is sit and watch.

Everything seems better after you go through it.  This can be true in many different aspects of people's lives.  Individuals might look back into their past and finally realize why their parents made certain decisions, or why they weren't allowed to do certain activities.  Memories often deteriorate over time, and we remember enjoyable events as being better than they actually were. Negative experiences frequently diminish over the years.  It is our job to remember our childhood just as it was and when we grow up it is important that we realize that both the past and the present have positive and negative elements.  It is the combination of these events and perspectives that make us who we are.

The Value of Learning

A school education can give you the potential to one day achieve a great job, or before that, to go to a good college.  Even though schools can give you a valulable education, schools don't give you"street smarts".  Schools can't teach common sense.  They do an excellent job of testing IQ and maximizing a student's academic potential, but they don't teach or test EI.  EI stands for emotional intelligence.  Emotional intelligence is the capacity to perceive emotions and to enhance thinking using the perception of the emotions involved.  Emotions shape our everyday lives and may determine our actions for the day, or how we go about relating to those around us.  It is one thing to get a good job, but it is completely different to be able to successfully keep that job. The most valuable lessons we could learn is how to interact with the world around us in a healthy way.  Unfortunately that's not the focus of traditional education today.

By the way, here is the writing prompt I was telling you about.  It would probably be helpful for you to have that.  Here it is.  Just click on the text.  Click here.  HERE!

Waste Land

Recently in class, we watched a documentary called Waste Land.  It was a Brazilian artist who moved to America and then went back to Brazil to help trash pickers raise money for their organization.  The part that I liked the most was everyone's reactions to when they realized that their artwork was sold and they had gained 50,000 dollars from it.  The idea that I will take away from the film is that it benefits to give back to the community that you are a part of.  For these people who are the trash pickers, they probably feel that they are insignificant and that they don't have a place in society.  The art about them and others interest in them made them feel important.  I would be extremely grateful if someone were to do that for me if I were in the same position.  There aren't really any aspects of my life that would qualify in that area.

Rogate Picture Story Kind of Idea

My partner Sai and I picked a picture from an online website and we created a video from it.  This was our picture.

This was our "newscast" about the picture.

Chicago Freeze Fire

This photo was from http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2013/02/winter_weather.html or you can just click here.  The person pictured in this photo is Fire Lieutenant Charley de Jesus.  The photographer was John Gress.

I chose this photo because it is outrageous that this amount of ice could form on the walls of a building that contained a fire inside.  The story that this photo portrays is how the Chicago Fire Department needed to fight not one element of nature, but two.  This also shows the magnitude of nature compared to humans and how that one fire fighter is surrounded by a cloud of white.  For people that look at this photo for the first time, it might be easy to miss the big cloud of smoke in the background, showing the real reason why the fire department needed to be there.  One question that I had about this picture is about what the temperature must have been at the time.  It would have needed to be in the negatives for ice to form not ten feet away from a scorching fire.  Photos like this one can really tell a story and while we as humans have great ability, we can never have complete mastery over the power of nature.

The Music Conference

Today, as part of the Wind Ensemble, we went to a music conference.  I took a few pictures there.  It was fun but our band teacher, Mr. Pinto, talked a lot.

Photo Challenge

The photo for Tuesday was "Underneath".  I picked the flame on a stove because everyone knows that food is essential, but without the flame, food would be uncooked and unhealthy.

The photo for Wednesday was texture.  Sadly, I don't have any ultra deep meaning behind this picture.  It is the material from one of the chairs in my mom's car.

This is my picture for the topic color.  This is a memorial to Isabelle Tezla.  She died in the bus accident a year ago.

Food

My family budget is around $120 a week for food.  My family staples are fresh baked cookies on a cooling sheet.

20% Project Plan

In Rogate, we were assigned a project called the 20% Project. It was originated in Google where they let their employees work on a project of their choice for 20% of their week. My project is designing an app that will tie into a computer game and a video about a cheerio named Charlie. We are basing our project on the brainchild of Shaun Thomas. I am working with my friend Taher to create the app. It will be based on a temple run-ish idea where Charlie runs away from teeth/spoons. We are still in the planning phase, but the programming will be the hardest aspect of our project. If everything goes as planned, we will be done by our deadline, which is in 3 months.

Martin Luther King Jr. Quote

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
- Martin Luther King Jr.

When Martin Luther King Jr. says this, he is clearly trying to say that you can accurately describe a man's morals by the way he hands challenges.  It is easy for people to put up fake emotions or a fake personality when they are at ease.  The way people react to problems and all of their decisions will express their real personalities.  This is one of his many famous quotes that have helped to inspire others at their time of need.

Looking back on 2012

2012 wasn't that great.  Very little happened for me.  I joined the marching band, which was a lot of fun.  When we went to finals, we got 7th place out of 21.  That is a lot better than how we did last year.  As I travelled through another year, so did the rest of the world.  A horrible accident occurred in my community.  One of the buses from my elementary school was hit by a dump truck as it was crossing an intersection and one of the sixth graders that I knew died.  Adding to the overall badness of 2012, we had the fiscal cliff.  Considering everything, our country didn't do very well.  2012 could be passed off as just another year that we made it through, but we will definitely feel the after affects in 2013.
I haven't really made any resolutions for the new year because frankly, I just don't have the energy to keep up with them.  I'm not really anti-resolution, I just don't like to make them.