Monthly Archives: April 2020

Baking Chocolate Brownies!

Diploma Program, IB Core

This month, I think I am more into discovering foods and recipes which I decided to bake some chocolate brownies with my friends for the first time ever. There is a lot of preparation such as pure chocolates, eggs, flours, butter…etc. Also, the steps and procedures are not as simple as I thought. One of the most memorable steps is the meting of chocolate which has to be prepared from a plate but melting it using a method called double-boiling which it melts the chocolate into liquid form without direct contact to the flame. The baking process is easier but it is essential to look at the time and softness periodically to make sure it is not overcooked. Overall, the making of brownies is quite successful and they are “eatable”. For me, it is a little bit too sweet and I think it is due to the ratio of sugar and chocolate during our procedures. It is a great experience for making a dessert at home.

First time Cooking a Full Meal for Dinner!

Diploma Program, IB Core

For this CAS experience, I decided to cook a meal that is completely done by myself for my dinner. I cooked some beef ribs, mushrooms, and eggs because there are more proteins in these foods which are what I needed the most. I think the flame control Is important when cooking beef ribs because not all the beef ribs are in equal sizes and thickness which is hard to cook them all in the medium-rare. Also, I found out cooking the beef ribs first is quite essential because it can later help seasoned the egg and mushrooms so there isn’t need for adding more salts or flavors afterward. Overall, I think I did an okay job on this first experience and personally I think it tastes better if you cook it yourself. I would love to try some more in the future because I believe cooking is also a decent area that can be mastered in the future.

Portfolio Post 4 Sacrifice and Protests in Sports: Just do It! Or don’t?

Diploma Program, IB Lang & Lit, Language

In this Language and Literature unit, we focused on the similar concepts of beliefs and values that were presented earlier in the play of A Doll’s House and Antigone. Nonetheless, we involved a brand new topic, the area of sport, to further strengthen the ideas of beliefs and values through incidents that athletes present similar ideas of individuality and how they value personal beliefs over the norms. In general, we focused on two main works of sports which are Nike’s advertisement and a documentary named Icarus. Both works present a solid connection to beliefs and values by having an iconic representation or character that demonstrates the approach of such ideologies within the works. It was a unique unit because the area of sports does not come up really often in terms of learning literature concepts, which I am even more excited to be able to engage in class through connection to literature topics and the passion for sports.

For this specific work accomplished in this unit, we were guided to create a slide for better preparation of the assessment of Individual Oral. We were required to select a non-literary work and a literary to make a comparison between two works relating to the topic of this unit, which is the significance of beliefs and values. I chose to work on Antigone for the literary work and Nike’s advertisement for the non-literary work. For the evidence of the Individual Oral, I chose a specific sentence from Antigone and Colin Kaepernick’s Nike advertisement to work on. While doing the annotation and background information of the work, it is essential to look inside the work with depth and discover the genuine intention of the purpose that authors aim to convey. It is important to extrapolate the work with something more than just the text or the image itself, the assessment requires us to think in more abstract thinking that can correlate to many other factors such as emotions, persuasiveness, and word choices.

This is my video for the Individual Oral about the comparison between two works that we studied this year. It is essential to present the IO with a great understanding of the works and a clear interpretation with organized structures on conveying ideas. Moreover, creating a comprehensive thesis is a thing that has to be accomplished correctly in this assessment. From the experience of the mini-IO that we also have done previously this unit, I work on further interpret multiple techniques artists used to better annotate and explain the work. Moreover, for the Nike advertisement, I evaluate more carefully on the minor objects presented in the ad such as the logo and slogan of Nike to better link and connect the artist’s purpose of the text and strengthen its persuasiveness. Overall, I learned how to construct an organized outline for Individual Oral and it can be largely beneficial for further usages in the literature study.

This unit connects largely to the world by mentioning or implying some potential or obvious global issues presented in the world. The most memorable one is Colin Kaepernick’s advertisement which presents the global issues of racial inequality. Kaepernick sacrifices his career as an NFL player in order to raise the awareness of such issues which is the reason I believe it is the most memorable one to sacrifice one’s beloved thing in order to pursue individual beliefs. Lastly, I enjoy the content of this unit and looking forward to more ways of literature work presentation in the remaining year.