Last Post Reflection.

So, I sat down to write this yearly reflection and I had no idea what to reflect on. I went back and read my first reflection and then some others. Based on all of those, I have definitely improved from the beginning of the year as an English student. But I think my biggest improvement that I want to talk about would be my writing. Mainly how I developed a writing style. Or better yet, improved on it. At the beginning of the year, I mostly had a writing style. My writing had a signature voice to it. I feel that this year I have improved on this aspect of my writing by adding structure and better form to it. My essays are structured better but I still use the same voice. Which is nice to know that no matter what writing strategies you use, your voice can still adapt.  

(Awesome) Non-Fiction Super SmartNote

This weeks Non-Fiction SmartNote is on an amazing topic. Something that I can regretfully say most kids have had experiences with as kids. Legos®! I return my focus this week back to Wired Magazine , a (according to Wikipedia) is "a full-color monthly American magazine and online periodical, published since January 1993, that reports on how new and developing technology affects culture, the economy, and politics." I am mostly interested in it for the technology piece. Anyway, this structure is to date one of the largerst and heavyest at that and it specs of weighing 23-tons and using over 5.3 million Lego® bricks. If you are unaware of what an X-Wing is you should go watch some Star-Wars. But basically is a plane Luke Skywalker flew to blow up the death star.
Thats what it looks like in the movie but here is the Lego® build.

Its wing span is 43 feet! That is about 2 feet larger than the wing span of the X-Wing in the movie according to this website. I just found it amazing that people go into work every day to build something as impressive as this. Though you may not be a Star-Wars fan, you should still have some respect for the 32 people that built the X-Wing. I believe, from a news report on ABC that I saw you can sit inside this and it comes with its own R2-D2. They unveiled it this memorial day weekend in New York City and at the end of this year Luke's X-Wing will be shipped in 3 different pieces to LegoLand California where the west coast will be able to see it. 

Reflection

My reflection this month is about my sustained writing and how it compares to me say writing with the same opportunities last year. I believe that I have grown immensely in my writing and to say the least thats still not really that good. If I were presented with the same assignment, though last year, the piece that I would have wrote would not have even gotten near published. I think the book I am writing now stemmed off from a great idea of a few writers and now I have the creative freedom of writing it myself. I can't wait for it to be published and, if much advancement is made in my writing, my next reflection.

SSN

Since I have not done a SuperSmartNote on my book, Clicked, I wanted to sum readers up with the premise and how the book was written. It was written by over 10 writers! For one novel! I would never write a book with that amount of people because there would be too many ideas and only one book. So what they did was essentially, create a basic story outline for the book and each author wrote one chapter, maybe more. It is interesting because  in taking note, you can't really say, "the author does that a lot, its in his style of voice." It's all one book but with many different authors so may the style may seem similar, they are not.

NFSSN

My smartnote this week was assigned as a Non-Fiction. I am going to focus on my poet for the poet study, Eminem. I analysed this song written by him called Hailie's song.. 

Sometimes it feels like the worlds on my shoulders

Everyone’s leanin’ on me

Cuz sometimes it feels like the world is almost over

But then she comes back to me

My Baby girl keeps getting older

I watch her grow up with pride

People make jokes, cuz they don’t understand me

They just don’t see my real side

I act like things don’t phase me,

Inside it drives me crazy

My Insecurities could eat me alive

But then I see my baby

Suddenly I’m not crazy

It all makes sense when I look into her eyes

That is the chorus for Hailie's song. You can see the full lyrics if you search it online. This reveals a lot about Eminem. He is saying that even in the hardset situations, his daughter can make it seem better. I don't want to reveal everything because I am presenting this week. But I will break down a part of the song."People make jokes [becasue] they don't understand me". He is also saying that people make fun of him for being close with his daughter like this. Most rappers don't have a soft spot in their heart. Eminem is just a rapper that expresses his feelings through song.

Research Relfection

My research was on War Dogs impact and effect on wars. My reflection is going to be on my research process and how it improved if I had not done this paper. I learned how to apply different research to one thesis and try my best to relate all of my sources to my thesis. This week it was our assignment to do a reflection on our research paper. I plan to also reflect on my research paper as soon as a reflection is assigned and I have the paper back in my possession with Ms. Capelli's comments. For now I can only say what I think I have really improved on since I started the paper.

Review of DrawQuest!/ Blog of the Month!

Due to the comments in my recent post, I downloaded the free app for iPad from the App Store DrawQuest. Check out my review of the concept here! So, just to sum up my last Non-Fiction Super SmartNote, it basically talked about how DrawQuest works and the limited potential it is exposed to now that it is live on the App Store. I first tried to download it on my iPhone, warning this app is "only for the iPad" this allows for better drawings because of the increased screen size on the iPad. I would also like to apologize for all of the pictures in this post but I wanted to show what it looked like. (Its not to great for me either; having to edit them and all). As soon as I opened the app I saw a new quest-- a drawing quest for the "newcomers". It was a screen with a face that had no mouth. The quest read "Add a smile!". I drew this...

Remember- This was my finger on a screen- no pencil or stilus.

 I then tried to submit my drawing for anyone to see who clicked on that quest. I then signed up with my gmail and my drawing was ready to be shared with the world. As I mentioned before, anybody can now see my drawing once submitted, but that also reveals that I can see theirs. One that stood out to me was this.

This "ninja" was much more than a smile. This is what I mean when I say that this app has the potential for many creations. You may notice the "①" notification in the left-hand corner. This was DrawQuest letting me know that I had a new quest to draw. Sounds redundant but thats why the app is named that way. The quest was this...

You have to fill in the blank for the question. Most of the time, based on my looking, the app proposes questions with blanks in a cartoonish looking picture. Now, with my limited time and horrible drawing skills, I was not even going to attempt to draw this. I did not show it before-- but there is a purpose to finishing certain quests. For completing the first "smile" drawing you receive 25 "coins". You can buy more colors to use in your drawings with coins and to my knowledge if others like your picture and "star" it you then gain even more coins. Below are some great examples of what some people can do with this app. I hope you enjoyed reading my post and I hope you try DrawQuest on the App Store for free on the iPad.