Home Economics - Japan

In home economics, we are learning about Japan. Something I have learnt about Japanese culture is that Tea Ceremonies are a symbol of respect and purity.  Compared to the majority of people in New Zealand, the Japanese take much longer to prepare food and put tones of effort into it. In Japan, it is common to have rice for every meal, whereas in New Zealand it isn't as common.

Another task we had to do in home ec was research rice, from this we now have to compose three questions someone else is able to answer. Here are my questions:

1. Why is brown rice healthier than white rice?
2. What colour is wild rice? 
3. Why is rice such common food? 

English - Critical Literacy - Musicals

Vocab - Stereotypes, Construction, Bias, Gender, Masculinity, Femininity

Masculinity stereotypes -

• Strong
• Manly
• Tough
• Brave 
• Aggressive
• Athletic
• Tall
• Work
• Blue 

Femanity stereotypes -

• Calm 
• Makeup
• Clean
• Small
• Quite  
• Passive 
• Delicate 
• Sensitive 
• Dress
• Soft 
• Pink

Somewhere that's green -

• Soft voice
• cleaning 
• man doing the mowing
• dress
• girl is cooking 

11. How are adults constructed in this text? Women are seen as cleaners and cookers whereas the men have more "masculine" jobs. The women are seen to be cleaning and doing jobs around the house with their hair all done and wearing dresses.

28. What kind of social reality does this text portray? Women have to do more feminine jobs while men are able to do the jobs seen more manly. The women are also perfect with her hair and dress immaculately.

29. How does this text construct a version of reality?  It constructs a version of reality as stereotyping someone based on whether they are a man or a woman was extremely common a few years ago and we are only now starting to not judge someone based on their gender.

27. What view of the world is the text present? The text shows us that in their world girls have to stick to the girly roles and the men have to stick to manly roles.

Legally Blonde - 

• dress 
• the only girl assumed to be dumb
• wants job
• not as soft and more confident. 

11. How are adults constructed in this text? The girl was seen as a dumb blonde, which isn't actually smart. She is seen as determined and doesn't have many of the stereotypical feminine traits

28. What kind of social reality does this text portray? The girl isn't judged by here gender instead she was judged on how well she did in school.

29. How does this text construct a version of reality?  Gender isn't how people are judged

27. What view of the world is the text present?

Art - Mural Research Thing

In art we had to do a research task about murals, here is my work:

Find a mural timelapse:

Artist name: Dan Kitchener

Art Location: 45th street/Butler street Pittsburgh, America 

My Comment: I chose this work because the colours caught my eyes as I was looking for a time-lapse. I like the detail of the work, how all the colours look together and I kinda like how chaotic it looks.

Find another mural:

Artist Name: Tess Sheerin

Where Arist is from: Tess Sheerin is from Raglan, NewZealand. She is an environmental activist as well as being an artist. 

My Comment: I chose this work because I like how it is simple and still spreads a message. I like how the background makes the seal stand out more and I like how the background colours correlate with the colours used for the trash. 

Home Economics - Souvlaki

In Home Economics we made Souvlaki. As usual, I worked with Cortney, Tana and Gabe. I think our group did a good job of distributing the jobs out evenly as we all ended up with jobs we were able to complete and that went with our skills in the kitchen. My job was to prepare and cook the beef that went in the souvlaki. The thing I think our group struggled with was cleaning as for some reason no one was really in the mood to clean as well as we normally do. Next time we could clean as we went along to make it easier for us in the end. We got to put whatever we wanted out of the food we had prepared. In my souvlaki, I put beef, lettuce, tomatoes and greek yoghurt. I thought that our groups' souvlaki turned out pretty well and I liked that we were able to add our own things in our own souvlaki. Unfortunately, no one in our group remembered to take photos otherwise I would have shared what the souvlaki looked like.

Physical Education - Gymnastics

In PE we have been doing gymnastics. In the 3 lessons we have had so far we have been getting used to the equipment and learning/practising some of the skills. The majority of my time in gymnastics has been spent on either the floor or the bars as they don't require taking socks off. Apparently, we were supposed to film our routine but none of our class got told this so no one filmed any routines. Although we didn't film our routines we still had to answer questions on how we felt like we are going to gymnastics so far. Here are the questions and my answers.

Something I did well? Something I think I did well was learning the routine for the floor as I can do the majority of the tricks and I also think I did a good job of learning new skills.
Something I could work on? I think I could work my handstand roll out as I don't have enough control to do the roll at the end.
How could I improve? I could improve my gymnastics skills by gaining more confidence as sometimes I doubt myself making me think I am unable to do a skill.


 Here is a step by step demonstration of what I am trying to work on.

Our whole goal in gymnastics was to eventually be able to complete a sequence. Jordy and I choose to focus on the floor. After a period we were able to successfully remember the routine.  The order of the routine was arabesque, cartwheel, forward roll, jump full turn the finish with a backward roll. The next period we filmed our routines, but we were a bit embarrassed so they aren't as good as they could've been. Unfortunately, the videos were unable to be sent at this point in time but I assure you that as soon as the video is able to be sent I will post it on my blog.

Learner Matrix - English

In English, we have been trying to improve our self-directed learning.  The first thing we had to do was highlight parts of the matrix in either green, meaning we feel like we do this or in yellow, which means we need to work on it. I wasn't sure about if I was already doing a few of these things but I tried my best to do it as accurately as possible. Here is my learner matrix:

We had to make a goal about one of the aspects we don't already do so I decided to do mine of having a positive attitude because I sometimes freak myself out when it isn't necessary. I also think it would be a good time to practice this aspect as creative writing isn't my favourite part of English.  My goal is to think positively about my work instead of doubting myself and my abilities. 

Figurative Language - Idioms