Author: Fred

I incorporated preparing for a swim race with assignments in class. I wanted to compare benefits from my essential swim items to the assignments I completed. I am very happy with how this turned out and it was very enjoyable to make due to my love for swimming.

Numbered Track:

1. Pasilda – Knee Deep Mix — Afro Medusa, Knee Deep
2. On The Roof — Arlo, fkblnde
3. Rainbow — ATRIP
4. BRIGHT — Atura, Simona Shao
5. Reach For You — Chris Lake, MPH, Kelly Lee Owens
6. Sunshine — D.O.D, RAHH
7. F1 Champagne — EMBU
8. make believe — jigitz
9. Candle Flame — Jungle, Erick the Architect
10. FORMATIONS — Mild Minds
11. Better — nimino, Manta
12. My Coffee – Radio Edit — Noah Loco
13. Satellite — Remedy Club, Charlie Boon, MELODIE
14. Alive — Shankz
15. In Your Arms — Shift K3Y

The rhetorical situation I established is when I’m on the way to a swim meet. The rules I had for myself were only house songs and upbeat/light songs. I feel that house music allows me to change my mood, but also think about my surroundings at the same time. This is unlike other genres because I get too invested into the songs, but house music allows me to focus on myself. I wanted to pick only upbeat songs in order for me to have a optimistic view of the competition I am either flying, driving, or even walking to. As an argument, I am conveying that my mix allows for transportation in a form of clarity. Listeners are able to have a clear mind when traveling to a new destination because of the uplifting house songs I chose to add.

I recreated a scene from “The Terminal” directed by Steven Spielberg. I decided to recreate this scene in particular because I wanted to take advantage of flying home for Thanksgiving break. Numerous movies have famous airport scenes and I saw the opportunity to recreate this image in particular as I was waiting to board. I grabbed some books from my bag as a prop and asked a friend to help. We recreated the hand positions very well, however, I wish I was leaning a bit further towards him.

The project as a whole greatly improved my understanding of how storytelling techniques work with one another. Making the comic changed the way I wrote about certain scenes and descriptions when I was writing the initial version. Many of the minor details I wrote about were filler and made the piece less cohesive, which making the comic helped me see. Because each panel in the comic had to depict a distinct action or emotion, I wanted to tighten the rhythm and concentrate only on the moments that truly mattered and added to my piece. That made it easier for me to determine what was crucial to the narrative and what I could leave out. After creating the comic, switching back to the written version was much quicker than the first time. The comic served as a useful writing strategy that helped me critique my own writing.

The Overcast Summer Other than snack and recess, there was only one thing I looked forward to in elementary school – the final bell. That bell meant more than just school ending to me, it meant freedom and independence, as I was finally free of the school’s confinement. I escaped the tedious homework and dreadful classes, which prohibited me from my ideal lifestyle. My ideal lifestyle did not require much, mainly consisting of playdates, video games, or sports. Summer was the perfect period for me, as I was able to focus on only these activities for the whole season. I would travel to Cape Cod and be free from any stress. It felt as if I was invincible to any academic demands or time-consuming tasks. Or so I thought. Then the infamous summer of fifth grade came around. At my safest time and place, school still found a way to encroach on my happiness by using a foreign concept known as summer reading. The stress and discipline of the school year permeated my summer due to summer reading. I was perplexed that this idea of assigning school work over the summer was accepted by my district. What made it worse was the fact that I never read books in my free time. This caused summer reading to loom over me and be a constant nagging thought as I attempted to procrastinate it. My mom invented a method to end this procrastination by paying me for each book I read. It wasn’t enough to make me enjoy reading, however, as I would try to pretend I had read the book to reap the reward. I should have known better, as there was no fooling my mom. She would keep track of my reading by interrogating me on certain plot aspects or scenes. My dad added to this method by paying me five dollars every time I spotted a grammatical error. Retrospectively, my parents’ two implementations caused me to absorb the content in the books I read. As a kid, every dollar I earned did not go toward anything tangible, only virtual games. Having more money to spend on games was the true motivation I needed. The more books I read, the more in-game currency I earned. Each book seemed as if it was shorter than the last. I hurried and immediately powered my console as soon as the book closed. I picked up my controller, excited to play, but something strange began to happen. I would stare blankly at the console home screen, not knowing which game to select. My motivation for reading was gradually changing unconsciously. I became motivated to read each book not because of the money or video games, but rather the pleasure each book brought me. Select books would paint imaginary worlds similar to the worlds simulated in video games I played.  Before I knew it, I finished my assigned reading. But something felt off. I had grown an urge to keep immersing myself in the fictional universes created by the novels I read. I needed to fulfill this desire and decided to ask my dad for a book recommendation. After I asked, he smirked as if he had been waiting all eleven years for me to ask. He rummaged around his office until he pulled out an intriguing novel and handed it to me. I took a closer look and read the words, “Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief”. Ironically, this book appealed to me as I always judge a book based on its cover. I remember first opening this novel on the porch as the sun glared down at me. I settled into the familiar, weathered Adirondack chair, facing the looming wooden giants standing over the lake. A sense of tranquility and ease consumed me as I opened the book for the first time.  I also felt anticipation, curious to what my dad had recommended. The flipping of pages, distant humming of boats, and leaves rustling were the only sounds present. I looked up and the hue of the sky warmed and noticed the smell of food drifting out from the kitchen. I was so enveloped in the novel that I lost track of time. The novel captivated me as it revolved around a demigod embarking on various life-threatening quests. For the first time, it felt as if a movie was playing in my mind and I was there with Percy on his thrilling quests.  Not only did summer reading change my lifestyle during the summer, but it carried over into my daily life as well. I ended up ordering the rest of the Percy Jackson series and slowly replaced playing video games with reading books. I became more optimistic with school work, such as outside reading, where I chose books similar to Percy Jackson. The most important change summer reading implemented was causing me to become more amenable. It made me open to trying new things that I would have always avoided previously. I realized that broadening my perspective revealed enjoyable opportunities that I could integrate into my life, stemming from assigned reading.

I wanted to answer the question of whether or not my productivity as well as social interaction effected my happiness. In order to answer this, I tracked my sleep quality, energy level, productivity, happiness, and social interaction, leading me to find small patterns across my data. I noticed how not only productivity and social interaction effected my happiness, but as well as sleep quality. As my sleep quality increased, so did the other categories. My sleep is essential for my day and I need to be prioritizing my sleep more in order for me to have a successful day. A successful day to me means being happy while also balancing my productivity. Based on the data, I can conclude that social interaction boosts my happiness, however school productivity has an inverse relationship with my happiness. This is due to the fact I dislike doing homework, which I already knew. But, I did not know that my happiness would increase along with physical productivity, such as swim. The social interaction aspect of swim can also be a factor, but it’s good to know I enjoy all the time I put into my sport. I chose to visualize my data as a type of bar graph to easily see the patterns of my categories. If I were to do this project in the future, I would most likely track something food related to see how my energy or mood changes due to my nutrition.

The process of writing “The Overcast Summer” and then converting that piece into a comic showed me a lot about the way I write. I have never made a comic before and have rarely read them, which led me to notice many key differences between writing this piece and drawing it. It seemed that I had a lot of small details that I did not expand on much, making it difficult to convert into comic form. I realized I had to leave some aspects of the written portion out of the comic because they either wouldn’t match the comic’s flow or were unimportant. I believe the comic’s flow is essential to writing. Looking back, I can see how a comic’s flow is similar to an essay’s flow in how all aspects need to be connected. The comic forces the writer to make a more cohesive piece, unlike just using text, because of the visuals. Converting the written portion into a comic improved my visual literacy, as I had to think about how each panel was arranged and the story it would tell. I struggled to find a main thesis or lesson to convey in my written portion, but while drawing the comic, it seemed much easier. I believe this is because I did not have to convert the lesson into words; instead, I could use images. For me, this was a lot easier due to the flow of the comic. When creating my comic, I found myself using many more symbolic images to portray my narrative. These things did not happen in my narrative or real life, but the message they portrayed aligned with my story. For example, in the third panel of my first page, chains are seen breaking on my wrists. This was meant to show how school feels very restrictive to me and the freedom I felt when summer arrived. I also added an image of me lying in bed with my eyes open to reveal a change in myself. It portrays how I knew I was missing out on something because I never tried new things. The last three panels were not part of my narrative, but I added them to reveal the message of the comic. One part of the comic I was very happy with translating from writing to comic form was the scene of me reading Percy Jackson for the first time. I was very descriptive in my narrative, and I thought it was easy for me to create an image of this scene because of the many details I described. Unlike the other unnecessary aspects, the details I chose to add here all flowed like the comic would, which I would like to translate into my writing as a whole. I feel that if I copied the flow of the comic and translated it into my writing, my writing would be much more efficient, cohesive, and would convey a more captivating message overall.

When creating my quadriptych comic, I wanted time to move in between the frames. It was challenging to draw the golf club because I could not picture one clearly in my head. This is similar to the triptych because they are both short stories. I think by stretching the middle and adding another panel, a lot more possibilities opened up versus the triptych. I enjoyed making the quadriptych more than the triptych due to the opened middle panels. I told the story of a broken golf club because I recently broke my friend’s golf club on accident.

The most noticeable aspect in the two pages I chose to trace and analyze were the shading. This led to my thesis of how the comparison between the David Small’s and Tillie Walden’s shading reveals how an author’s shading style reflects a different way of handling emotion. The process of tracing and analyzing these two pages was much more time consuming than I expected. I did not realize how many details were in one page and how difficult it would be to replicate it. It allowed me to see the small aspects that change the meaning portrayed in each frame and overall message. It helped me with my comic narrative project, as I am now incorporating the small hidden techniques that David and Tillie used in order to portray my overall message in a more creative way.