Category Archives: Diploma Program

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.

Basketball Plays 2

Diploma Program, IB Core

For the past 2 weeks during CAS Friday, I have been working on the two plays that I viewed in the previous post. I decided to actively operate these 2 plays on a real court to actually adjust and view the perspectives of operating these plays. I have been trying to be more familiar with and more consistent with these 2 plays for these 2 weeks and did it more like in a “slow-motion” form. I think I am confident to operate the plays more consistently in a slower form, but I think it could be improved after more practices and I will be able to actually use these plays in an actual game in the future and hopefully benefitting the team with these efficient plays.

Here are some videos of the “slow-motion” forms of the plays:

 

Fitness Factory & Biggest Challenges…

Diploma Program, IB Core

As I continue to work out for the next 2 weeks, I stay with the same work out list with the types of equipment needed. However, I did not go to the gym that often because I do not have that much time after school resumed from Digital Days (due to coronavirus). I tend to go to the gym 3 days per week after school started and I think it is hard to maintain that schedule since the school work and activities are inconsistent and would be hard to manage time efficiently. Moreover, another challenge that I faced was “Food”. Some of the amazing foods are just too appealing that it had negatively impacted my progress in the gym (due to excessive calories and fats), therefore, after 2~3 weeks, I did not see clear progress in this CAS experience. Nonetheless, from this CAS experience, I learned and understood the challenges of staying determined and having that perseverance to say “no” to things that you love but may affect your goals. I think this lesson is essential as I will be able to come up with a better mindset in the future when dealing with goals and ways to avoid and ignore those negative attractions to achieve my goals more successfully in the future.

Debate on Nike’s Colin Kaepernick advertisement

Diploma Program, IB Lang & Lit, Inquiry & Creativity, Language
  • My thoughts about the Nike advertisement:
    • In my opinion, I am on the supporting side of Nike having that advertisement on Colin Kaepernick. I believe it is essential for Nike to take this opportunity to further promote its own reputation and upholding its main belief:” Just Do It”. Colin Kaepernick’s incident has fully displayed Nike’s spirit of just doing it no matter the cause of it to be, which Kaepernick decided to stand for voicing the need for a change on racial prejudice by kneeling down during the national anthem. Moreover, the quote stated “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.” stands out in the ad and is targeted to be the main focus of the advertisement. Although people might think Colin Kaepernick did not sacrifice everything, I believe he is mostly there to sacrifice everything by giving up his life of being a professional football player and his career. It is a huge sacrifice for an athlete that works for his whole life just to play in the NFL and his sacrifice on this is extraordinary for me. 
  •  What extent the context of production should be considered when analyzing advertisements: 
    • I believe it is significant to consider the context of production which in this case the involvement of Nike in Colin Kaepernick’s incident. The relationship between it is something to be focused on and the purpose of Nike to display such controversial ads should be considered as it informs the meaning of the ad and the reason for Nike to intervene in this incident. I believe the spirit of “ Just Do It” correlates to Colin Kaepernick’s action is the main reason for Nike to take this opportunity to seek attention from the customers, ultimately achieving its goal to promote Nike as a sportswear company who strongly stand on what the company believes in. 
  • Why do we study language?
    • We study the language and the structure of language because it is a way people express their meaning and intention through a variety of ways of language. The quote shown in Colin Kaepernick’s Nike advertisement divided a sentence into two separate segments in order to strengthen its intention to make specific words to be seen before the other. It can help to develop a stronger expression of the message of the advertisement by “believing in something” first then the consequence of it to “sacrificing everything”. The usage of syntax here is effective as it helps to make a more clear message of the advertising and become more persuasive.
  • In what ways is meaning constructed, negotiated, expressed and interpreted?
    • Meaning can be fully expressed in these ways through, in this unit, the strength of an advertisement. It is essential to structure details and icons in the right place in order to fully display the meaning of it. The placement of things in this ad is essential as it leads the way how the audience views it and makes it influential of not. For example, the quote present in Colin Kaepernick’s Nike advertising impact a lot on the overall performance of the ad as it was placed in the middle of the ad and kept Kaepernick to be the background, which further strengthens its purpose of the quote by relating it to colin Kaepernick’s incident, therefore, making the ad to become persuasive.

Portfolio #3 Antigone

Diploma Program, IB Lang & Lit, Literature

For this Language and Literature unit, we focus more on a specific Greek play written by Sophocles called Antigone. It is a Greek play that demonstrates a rebellion movement by the female protagonist to emphasize the importance of culture, identity, and community and how an individual connects to society. Throughout the unit, we accomplished two paper 2 writing, discussion, and the Morality and Marginalization Project which these three tasks are considered the most essentials materials to learn in this unit. For Paper 2, we did an untimed and timed one while writing prompts that focus specifically on investigating implicative or potential ideas that occurred in Antigone and to have a clear interpretation and demonstration of our thoughts on those prompt ideas. The work that I present underneath is the outline of the paper 2 untimed versions which is formed base on breaking the context, structure, and ideas separately in order to organize it efficiently, therefore, creating a better thesis statement and strong arguments with clear interpretation in the writing. I become to be more familiar with forming a decent thesis statement that can clearly be proven by evidence in the text and other symbolic representations, ultimately helping me in writing literature writing overall.

The discussion we did in this unit also helps me discover and found out the hidden ideas or implications represented in the play which help me better understand the perspective and identity of characters in the play. We have completed three discussions in this unit and each discussion we discussed the play in distinct perspectives and objectives in the play which help me interpret symbolic literature evidence in the play while also present personal connection and opinions in the discussion. Moreover, we also make connections to other literary work that we have studied such as A Doll’s House which we compare and contrast the similarity and difference within two plays, ultimately finding the purpose of the playwrights on presenting such ideas in the play.

Through the discussion, new ideas I had were the contemporary tension that links back to the literature text we studied. While I am doing the connection between modern and past well, as I continue in my literature studies and discussion, I want to focus on improving the interpretation and implication of the literary text. I will do this by exploring various ideas in the text, which help me on justifying the purpose of depicting the characters in a specific way from the playwright.

Lastly, we did a project called the Morality and Marginalization Project which we were divided into groups and present rebellion ideas either by debate or video. For my group, we chose to do a debate because we feel like it is better to understand arguments from both sides in order to identify if it’s a rebellion or not. Moreover, we chose “Greta Thunberg” to be the person we discussed in this debate because her climate change movement has been controversial in society and resulting in whether her action is a rebellion or not. We chose to work on the “climate change” global issue because we feel like this issue is somehow not been considered as much essential as other global issues and actions should be more actively taken. Our debate topic is about whether Greta Thunberg is a positive impact on society which I stood as the negative side of this debate. Consequently, we formed a website for this project and put up our works onto the website, “Making of a Rebel“.

Throughout this unit, I was able to investigate the relationship between society and individuals in-depth by different materials such as the play Antigone or the project. I realize the importance of the system of society can do to an individual’s identities and morality. Furthermore, I learned about the power of rebellion and the impact it could deal on society, which I believe a balance should be taken between upholding individuality and orderly society. Thus, we should cherish the rights we have nowadays to be able to express our individuality through a freedom society and democracy.

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Fitness Factory

Diploma Program, IB Core

For this CAS experience, I would like to participate in a fitness-kind activity which I will be specifically focusing on core muscle training in this experience. In order to accomplish it effectively, I went to a gym and use mechanical types of equipment that help to specifically improve core muscles with more efficiency. I planned a set of training lists ahead of time which I will be doing 5 mechanical types of equipment to improve core muscles. The equipment I used is for example “SBE”, “abdominal crunch”, and “V-Crunch”. Usually, I did 15 times in a set and I will be doing 3 set for each equipment. I decided to pursue better core muscles because I had taken a body test and it shows that my core is weaker than other muscles such as legs or chest, therefore, I attempt to use this CAS experience to act as a motivation to go to the gym and improve on something I am weaker at. Thus, I will have better performance while doing ball-related sports in the future.

 

 

Basketball Plays

Diploma Program, IB Core

As being the point guard of the team, it is essential to know efficient and effective plays to score on the opponent’s defensive position. Although this year’s basketball season has already ended, I would like to investigate some basketball plays that I could potentially use in the next season, which I went to research about some of the most effective plays that can be used under “man to man” defense. For the first play, it is called the “elevator door” play which it is for the shooter to get a wide-open situation to shoot the ball. The play will start at the side and end it up passing to the middle 3 point line to make the shot. The shooter will first stand at the corner position and moves towards the middle and goes up to the 3 point line. While the shooter is moving in action, two forwards will be screening for the shooter so that the defender guarding the shooter will be late to catch up when the shooter shot the ball. This play is named the elevator door because it looks like how the shooter can go through the door but the forwards, act as the elevator door, will close up that opening and block the way of the defender from catching up the shooter. Therefore, the shooter will be able to have that wide-open opportunity to shot the ball. This play is commonly used in “Golden State Warriors” since they have good shooters in the team and I believe our team can try it as well.

The second play is called “flare slip” which is aiming to create an open layup for the wing players. The play will start up at the top and the wing player will be screening a fake screen for another wing player while immediately cut into the middle after setting the screen. It results in miscommunication of the defense to be able to catch up with both players at the same time. The timing of setting the screen is essential so that the confusion of the defensive players can be made. It can be applying to our team as in high school level basketball, there will be more frequent miscommunication in defense especially in man to man defense which I believe this play will work. Thus, I will be starting to physically demonstrate this play through practices with some of my classmates to be able t memorize and be more familiar with these plays in the following years.

“Elevator Door” –

“Flare Slip”

First of 2020, SKI “worn turn”!

Diploma Program, IB Core

Happy 2020, another year has passed and another year has come. 2020 has again reminded me of how time has passed so rapidly and high school graduation is one step closer to us. Let’s all hope it will be a wonderful year once again.

First of all, the first CAS experience of this year that I decided to initiate is pursuing an even more advanced level on one of my beloved winter sport: skiing. I have been skiing for the past 5 years and I am confident to say that it will not stop easily. The speed, the curving turns, or the aesthetic-liked motions are the main reasons I am so into ski. This year, I would like to learn a new skill in ski that I have never tried before which I would like to use this CAS experience as an essential opportunity to achieve this goal. The skill that I am learning is called “worm turns”, which is a skill that can be done by constant speed and an accurate posture. A video from youtube was the inspiration that I came up with this idea and it is also very cool to do such skill on a ski. Thus, I informed my ski instructor about it and we began to make lots of attempts the next day, which at the end I was actually expressed with the product and looking forward to doing some more during the next winter season.

(Here are some videos of the trials and products of this CAS experience and the Youtube video that inspired me to do the attempt.)