P5/6 - Literature & Social Psych

This is the first class I've ever had that takes up more than one period. I initially tentatively feared that the day might drag on what with an hour and forty-five minutes of class time, but it actually goes by rather quickly. I'd say that this is because every day has something interesting- whether it be to read, to discuss, or to perform.

As a brief overview of what we have done and what we are doing, so far we've read and discussed Jonathan's Swift's A Modest Proposal, touched upon ethics and morality, more recently read (almost completed) "The Four Agreements" by don Miguel Ruiz which I am now applying to my life, and lastly we are currently working on a personal project.

I'm glad that we're able to do creative projects like this personal project about ourselves (we have a lot of freedom for our physics project as well) instead of being assigned a personal essay or something or other. Because compared to an essay, this is actually rather fun.

P4 - Life & Single Living

Life & Single Living is a very chill, very diverse class. It's atypical, but we still learn, in the same way as we would  were we taking a guidance or life skills or art course.

So far, we have learned how credit/debit cards work and how to use them, how much things cost in college, how to write checks, things that we'll need to live by ourselves, etc.  Recently, we've also been bringing in food based on our groups, which is fun.

On Thursdays, we get independent study, which is the same thing as study hall, but in a period instead of after school.

At the moment, we are learning how to use sewing machines :0

Fun stuff.

P3 - Physics

Currently reading through the relatively new AP "text book";

Also doing some programming for my physics simulations for my "physics in real life or sports w/ a video for a 5 min presentation" project. So far I have a gravity/orbitals in space simulation, and a cannon physics with collision simulation.

P2 - Calculus

We are currently learning about limits and "what is the maximum possible profit?" sort of functions. Limits, depicted above, describe the behavior of a function near a particular point, but not necessarily at that point. A good example of this would be the function 1/x, where x can never be 0. So the limit would be x = 0.

P1 - Art

Art is the first period of the day. Insofar we have done spiral-patterned clay cups which we will soon be glazing (I chose to make a teacup),  color gradients, or levels, from black to white, and most tecently a project which involves layering and weaving pictures of our faces together to create something new and painting it. The point of this process is to use the color gradient process to create a sort of dynamic lighting or contrast. This works in the same way that the red and blue "yes we can" 2008 Obama campaign poster does.

First step, taking pictures of our faces  in low-detail black and white;  second step, weaving the them over each other to create a 5" x 7" composite image; third step tracing it with a sharpie on a plastic layer; fourth step putting the traced plastic layer onto the projector and projecting it onto the "actual" paper; fifth step then tracing over the light projection onto the big "actual" paper; sixth step choosing pints and painting the regions using the aforementioned color layering techniques tocreate a rather unique self portrait.

I am currently on the fifth step. This project has been very interesting and I look forward to developing it further.