Stay Green

My first semester of high school was filled with different high and low points. There were days where I was completely confident with the materials and others where I felt all out of sorts. What I can say, is that through the entire semester I learned a lot about each subject and how things work at Poly as a whole. I will try my best to learn on the mistakes I made and improve on the good things I have done.


During this first semester I was able to experiment with many different strategies to succeed. Some were definitely better than others, and what I felt was the best was to always stay ahead of the game. For example in math always try and stay an assignment ahead or in Spanish try to get the VHL for the week finished early. This strategy allowed me to not be struggling for time, which allowed me to always give my work full effort. This will definitely be something I improve on and take with me for the rest of my years at Poly.


The project I am most proud of for this semester is the comic strip project. I am most proud of it because I have never considered myself even an average drawer, but I felt that I was able to put some good drawings into my strip. I did this by looking up youtube videos on how to draw each specific item onto my paper. This took time, but I was very proud of how it looked in the end. I will use this project as motivation for when I think that I can not do something.


Something that did not achieve the results I intended for the first semester was math. I began the year strong, but towards the end of the semester I wavered off. In the beginning of the year I was very excited for high school and everything was new and interesting for me. When I started to become less interested, I stopped trying and my grade suffered because of this. This is why I will learn from this and try my best to finish how I start and not to drop off towards the end of the year.


This class was very useful in some instances of the semester, but in most instances what we learned was not implemented into other classes. Although, the minimal amount of times that I am asked to utilize different technological tools, what I have learned in this class is very useful to me. Without the step by step instruction that this class offers I would be completely lost, but again the things we are taught in E-learning is not implemented into my different classes often.


My goal for next semester is to always stay ahead of the game. I will complete this goal by always staying an assignment ahead even if this means doing a lot of work on weekends. This will lead to a stronger performance throughout the whole year and help me to improve on mistakes I have made this semester.

Willpower

The StayFocusd Extension is a tool that helps people to stop getting distracted from their tasks. It can do this by limiting the amount of time one spends on websites of the persons choosing per day. Once the allotted time on a website is completed then the cite is blocked from use for the day.

zechisalive.wordpress.com

I used the StayFocusd extension to prohibit me from going on Addicting Games for an extended amount of time. During my few days of using the Extension, I found that it really helped me to make sure that my ten minutes on the website did not turn into a whole hour or even two. The primary problem that I've noticed, when I get distracted is that I do not really realize how much time goes by each time I veer off into different and less productive topics. This extension makes sure that does not occur. I have no dislikes about the tool, because it is probably the best possible way to limit the time that goes into being distracted.

I will most likely not use this app in the future. This is because this problem all boils down to whether a person has the willpower to stay on track. It all depends on whether someone can say that they can not get sidetracked anymore. I do not believe that any extension could stop a person without this willpower from getting distracted.

Voice Thread

"When they [NASA] were soliciting applications for astronauts, they rejected people with pure histories of success and instead selected people who had had significant failures and bounced back from them" (Dweck 29).

Imagine that Poly has a selection philosophy similar to NASA's. You are applying to Poly as an incoming ninth grader and have been asked to write a short reflection of 250-300 words on a significant academic or school failure and how you bounced back. (Not your personal life.)

The roughest academic year for me was by far was my second grade year. It was my gonna be my first year with actual letter grades and like any other second grader, I stepped into the classroom on my first day of school with enough optimism to fill the room. I had big dreams. I was gonna be a president, major league baseball player, and astronaut all at the same time, but I should of known the moment I stepped into Mr. Tiu's class, that this would be my greatest challenge yet.

We were only a week in when I had my first homework assignment. At this point in my academic career I was not a huge fan of being held captive at school for six hours and then having to do work at home to bring the next day. Me, being the bright second grader I was, found a quick solution. After "leaving my homework at home" for the next three weeks or so I got my first progress report. These grades were probably not the best way to start my second grade year, but they were definitely the reality check I needed.

Image Credit: www.coffeyvillepl.org

After reviewing my grades and the percentages stapled with them, I realized that the homework I was not doing was affecting my grades significantly. I knew that if I wanted to one day reach my goals I would have to put the effort in not only in the classroom, but also everywhere I went. When I finally turned my first assignment in and saw the smile on Mr. Tiu's face, I knew that I would try my best to never miss another assignment again.