Monday, November 24th

What are you doing for Thanksgiving? Do you have any traditions? Go in to detail about your plans for the 5 day weekend.

On Thanksgiving, we gather with our closest friends in the area and have huge feast. Everyone brings a lot of dishes that are either Indian or American. This year my family is making the turkey so we are going to bake a gigantic turkey with stuffing and cranberry sauce. It's my job to make the cranberry sauce, stuffing, and mashed potatoes while my mother and father make the turkey and Indian food to go along with it. My brother isn't that into cooking but he helps out by cutting vegetables from time to time. We also have another huge feast on Saturday but this is with a lot of people instead of our close friends and its a pot-luck so everyone contributes something small and we create a large feast for everyone to partake in. This year I hope to making a Thanksgiving dessert too!

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Thursday, November 20th

Go out and look up a what all goes on a resume website. What can you find? Include an example image if possible.

When I was looking up resume websites, most of them seemed to be simple. It didn't look cluttered or messy but just really neat. They have a simple color scheme and are well put together. Most of them don't have pages and pages of information but short paragraphs highlighting the most important aspects of their life. The fonts are all professional and so are the images used on the website. Most resumes websites also seem to include an image of the person who the resume is about along with their personal information and ways to contact said person. 

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Monday, November 17th

Consider the quote below. What exactly do you think it means and how does it relate to Web Design?

The quote is talking about how Web Design isn't just about how cool the finished product is, but instead its learning all the steps to getting there. Just knowing all the minute details and being able to perfect the web page into something you would be proud of. Anyone can use a template and paste pictures and type words on said template but its a whole different process to actually use code and style the website the same way you pictured it in your head. A design is a working product that runs smoothly. Some websites may look pretty on the outside, but the links may not work. That would still be considered a "design" but a true design would be able to incorporate working parts into the finished product of the website that also looks nice. For example, Google is really simplistic and looks neat and organized on the outside, but Google also almost never messes up. It gives you fast results without distracting colors flying all over your page. 

User Experience- The overall experience an individual person has while visiting a website or web page. 

Thursday, November 13th

Reflect on your learning this semester so far in this class. Think about the first day you walked in to this room until right now. What have you learned about Web Design? What have you learned beyond Web Design? Explain yourself.

I learned a lot about Web Design. I not only learned the basics of HTML and CSS but some more advanced stuff too! I also learned about lots of things that are overlooked like Color Theory and Copyright Laws. I think Color Theory and learning about Copyright laws are very important because they can be good to know in multiple situations. Being in Web Design has helped me develop my coding skills and now I am able to code web pages and web sites without the hassle of looking stuff up all the time. Not only have I learned coding itself, but I have also been able to experience multiple coding softwares and I have been able to identify which one I prefer the most.

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Friday, November 7th

Define the following terms on your blog. Do not copy and paste definitions. Site where you got your definition.

FTP: It is short for "File Transfer Protocol." It is used to transfer files between networks and computers.

Web Server: It is a computer that delivers serves up Web pages. All web severs have an IP address and some have a domain name also.

Web Hosting (also list examples of web hosting companies): It stores all the pages of your website and makes it able to be found on the internet.

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Monday, November 3rd

Tell me about your weekend. Give me details and photos!

My weekend was overall pretty good. On Saturday, I spent most of my morning, shopping for one of my friends' birthday present. Well online shopping of course. I was heavily debating buying a felt avocado but decided against it and instead looked at the Troye Sivan sweatshirts. I still have yet to purchase it, but its the thought that counts! Her birthday party was later that day but I was unable to attend due to the fact that one of my parents close friends also had a birthday party that day and he was turning 60. People that I knew back when I lived in Tennessee were there and it was awkward because they all started hugging me and I had no idea who they were. I just smiled and nodded at everything they said. Sunday, was overall tiring. I woke up at 6 in the morning to go play violin at the church service. I was there until 12 o'clock. After that, I watched the Patriots game and finished my homework.

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Monday, October 20th

Tell me about your weekend. Share pics!

This weekend was just all around fun but it was pretty tiring. My parents were out of town because of their work so it was just my brother and me at home. We ordered pizza, bought Chipotle and just overall stuffed ourselves with junk food. On Saturday, I went to a concert at my church with one of my friends and we had a lot of fun. The performer was Tedashii and he made us dance and do a whole bunch of really weird things since we were third row. Of course my friend and I were super awkward but we made it through. Afterwards, I was super tired, but I got a hat and wristband though! When I go home, my brother had a bunch of his friends over, so I just went up to my bedroom and watched Netflix. Sunday, I just went to church and did homework like usual. 

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Friday, October 17th

What kind of background do you have with Photoshop? Have you used it before? What other types of design and editing software have you used before? Explain.

I have used Photoshop in the past before. I loved using Photoshop when I was younger so I had looked up tutorials and figured out by myself how to work it. I even took a computer class in 7th grade that went over Photoshop. Unfortunately I haven't been able to use it that much in the past two years but I have used Gimp quite a bit. I used a lot of it to make book covers and just make random edits for fun. Although I don't, know all the small technical stuff, I do know how to use it and I find it really interesting to do. 

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Tuesday, October 14th

Below is a letter written to the editor who wrote the article 'Enforcement of dress code creates negative effect' that your blogged about last week. Most of you wrote on your blog that you agreed with the writer. What are your thoughts after reading the letter below and seeing a different perspective. Are they the same? Are the different? Do you agree? Disagree? Explain yourself.

I see your point about how people can just wear what they want outside of school which is true, but at the same time you don't have a lot of chances to actually express who you are as a person through your fashion sense especially when you are young. I mean, we don't have school uniforms for a reason. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be a dress code because there should be one. I just think it should be a little more flexible. And no matter how strong rules are, people are always going to break them. Wearing clothing that's a little revealing doesn't affect our grades or what we're learning in school, hardly anyone actually cares because as we grow up we are going to change and become more professional. But as of now, we are still young.

Monday, October 13th

I think you should be able to start training early for the career of your dreams so you are more focused on one area than multiples. For example, you don't actually need a lot of the deeper areas of math if your going into medicine so why would you need to learn them? It would be a lot easier to be know everything in your field of learning of your mind isn't holding a bunch of other useless pieces of knowledge you're most likely never going to lose. And the teaching would be geared more towards each individual student. Everyone is smart in their own way and better at some activities than others. I know people who are amazing at speaking but they struggle with writing, or they are great at test taking, but they cant write an essay or make a speech. Not to mention, each student learns a little differently, if a teacher just outright says all the information, those who learn visually, don't do as well in the class because they are not able to absorb much of the information. The classes would not only have to be a lot smaller for this, but they would be more split up based on each child's learning style, interests, future life goals.

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Assignments

Career Search

Copyright Law and Graphics

Thursday, October 7th

The following article was in the September issue of The Tiger Print. Read the article (even if you already have) and respond to it below. What do you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Consider all perspectives of the article while you respond.

I do agree with what the author of the article is saying. Clothing and fashion is just another way for a person to express themselves. By creating a dress code, the school is just limiting our creativity a bit more. Especially the whole covering your shoulder thing with something larger than a spaghetti strap. Shoulders are shoulders. We all have them... So whats the point? If we want to express ourselves by wearing high-waisted shorts, I think we should be able to. The author is also right about the teacher comments. I mean there's a difference between fashionable and inappropriate. And I admit some people do cross the line sometimes but that doesn't mean a teacher should be rude about it. Teachers are supposed to be setting a role model for us and they insult other people, why should we want to be like them? Especially during this period in a girl's life when they are most insecure. You definitely don't want to be put down by the adults around you.

Thursday, October 6th

Tell me about your weekend! If you don't have anything fun to share, tell me about the city you live in. What do you love about Kansas City? Do you have a favorite place in the city? Favorite team? :) Favorite event? Explain.

My weekend was pretty tiring. My cousin came over with his husband and child and I was the one stuck looking after said child. He's not even a year old and his name is Ryan. He had the most adorable smile and he expected me to carry him around everywhere even though he can crawl perfectly fine on his own. His parents basically just handed the responsibility of taking care of his to my family. I even had to feed him a couple of times. He also managed to develop an obsession for french fries in the short time he was here. They left on Sunday morning which was pretty upsetting but I get to see him again for Christmas. There's not a lot I have to say about Kansas. I'm more of a Boston person. I love the Red Sox, the Patriots, the Bruins, and the Celtics. I just love everything about the city, especially the seafood and being so close to the ocean.

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Monday, September 29th

Tell me about your Homecoming weekend! If you didn't participate in the Homecoming festivities, what did you do? Share pics!

I did not attend Homecoming this past weekend because I chose not to go. I don't regret it though because I was instead able to talk to one of my best friends, Karina, who currently lives in Singapore. I don't really get to talk to her much because of the time differences and our conflicting schedules. I also got to stay home, watch some quality television and stuff my face with junk food which was extremely relaxing. I didn't have much homework so it felt really nice to just not be stressed or worrying about anything for a bit. I also started planning on how I wanted to redecorate my room because its a bit bland at this point. I finally got to cleaning it and now you can actually see the carpet! I even started buying materials. I think my first project for it, is going to be an art wall. I'm so excited to start it but I don't know when I'm going to have time! 

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Monday, September 22nd

How was your weekend? Did you do anything exciting? Share photos!

This weekend was pretty horrible because I caught something and my nose was all runny for most of it. I ended up not attending any of my planned Saturday activities because I didn't feel well enough. I ended up staying home and calling my friends that live in various parts of the world from Maryland to Singapore. It was a lot of fun catching up with them and making jokes with them again. On Sunday, I was feeling a lot better so I went to church and hung out with my friends. It was awkward because they made us play Get-to-know-you games. Afterwards, I didn't have orchestra so my family ended up going to eat at Jack Stack BBQ and it was delicious. 

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Friday, September 19th

Now that you are several weeks in to this class and have coded one (super small) website, what do you think? What are your thoughts on web design? Is it what you thought it would be? Is it better? Worse? What's your favorite part? What's your least favorite part? Explain.

Web Design is a lot of fun overall. Sure there's a lot of memorizing and putting pieces together but after you get past that, its really fun to see all the different things you can create. It's definitely a lot harder than I first imagined but seeing the final project makes it all worth it. My favorite part is probably CSS because that's where you can actually make your website come to life with crazy colors and patterns. The most boring part is probably bearing through the framework because everything just looks bland and boring at that point. 

 

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Thursday, September 18th

What is the importance of deadlines? How do high school deadlines reflect or simulate "real world" experience? Give an example of when you met or or didn't meet a deadline that was important.

Deadlines are almost like rules. They keep you from doing useless things all the time. If you didn't have deadlines then no one would do any work. In real life, you're always going to need to plan things out because you can't do nothing forever. If you have a behind the desk job, you're always going to have due dates for your projects. If you play a musical instrument, there's always going to be set dates for your concerts and recitals. Having deadlines in high school is just practice for your life after that because when your an adult you don't really get any second chances. I remember I had to turn in a book review for an unpublished book over the summer, but I ignored it for too long so now I don't get to review two books at a time. 

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Tuesday, September 16th

Reflect on this quote. Give an example of a time in your life that this might have been the case.

You have to prepare for almost any important think you will do in life. Preparing can be anything from practicing to studying. Without having studied or practiced, you will most likely fail because your brain hasn't had a long enough time to process and remember the information. I remember a few months ago, I had a violin recital coming up and I was supposed to have practiced because I wasn't hitting all the notes and I hadn't memorized it yet. I didn't practice all week until the hour before the recital. Skipping the gruesome details, lets just say I fell out of sync with the piano and played some horrid sounding notes. Lesson learned: Never go into a recital without practicing.

 

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Monday, September 15th

What did you do this weekend? Share pictures if you have them!

This weekend was extremely busy for me. On Friday, right after school, I had to go volunteer at the Valley Park Elementary Carnival. It was a lot of fun because I did it with two of my friends. All the little kids were so adorable. The hours went by really fast, but it was still tiring keeping an eye on everyone. On Saturday, I had to wake up and make cookies for a picnic we were going to that day. The first batch didn't come through right so we had to start all over again. It took a couple hours but they came out close to perfectly and they were a big hit at the picnic. The picnic was overall boring because only old people were there and it lasted till 9. Sunday was probably the most chill day for me. I went to church, and I got to talk with some of my old friends there. After that, I watched the Patriots game for a bit, but couldn't catch the end of it because I had to leave for orchestra practice. At least the Patriots won though! Orchestra was also really enjoyable. They even gave us ice cream and we could decorate it anyway we would like. Of course I put mountains of sprinkles and m and ms on mine. After that, I just Skyped my friend in New Jersey and finished up some homework before I went to bed.

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Thursday, September 11th

Below is one of my favorite quotes that I found on Pinterest. Think read and think about what this says and then blog about it. What does this quote mean to you? Elaborate! Feel free to give an example of tell a story.

There's an infinite amount of things to discover. Its all just about how you look at it. I mean I bet you've seen that one normal looking house on the end of your street and that's about all you think of it, but there's so much more you can do with that. Remember when you were 4 years old and a metal pot on your head made you a knight in shining armor or your swimming pool was actually an infinite ocean of boiling lava. Well who says you still can't think like that. There's so many different ways to look at things, why would you just want to focus on one? Why just sit there and stare at a wall when instead you can look at a wall and imagine what you want that wall to become. There's so many things to do this in this world from traveling the world to finding the cure to some terminal endless. Why just sit there complaining about why you have nothing to do when you can make a difference and make your mark.

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Tuesday, September 9th

How do you express your creativity? Explain.

I love to express my creativity through writing. By writing I can express all my feelings into words. It's really freeing overall because you can write anything you want and let go of all the negative feelings you are holding on to. You can do anything in a short story or a novel. You can create a whole new world, create yourself into a whole other person. You can skip to the future or visit the past. Writing gives you the option to make the perfect world you want to live in.

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Monday, September 8th

What did you do this weekend? Share pictures if you have them!

On Saturday I was rudely woken up by my parents because I was dragged all the way to a violin shop on the back of some random person's house. To be honest, I was actually pretty scared because the house was rundown and in the middle of nowhere. There was even a cat prowling around it. My violin teacher met us there so we could get my new setup. I needed a new chin rest and neck rest because if I continue playing violin with the one I have I could possibly severely injure my spine. We were stuck waiting outside the small shop for half an hour until we realized that the owner was out of town. I was not a happy camper. But my parents made it all better by buying me gummy bears because who doesn't like gummy bears. After that, I mostly chilled the rest of the day either doing parts of my homework or reading a book. On Sunday, I had to wake up again and go to church and then after that I had church orchestra practice. It was all tiring but still fun. Sunday night was spent doing last minute homework and then going to bed early because I was exhausted from all that waking up.

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Friday, September 5th

*Old Man Voice*
These days, those young-ins, all they doing is playing on their glowing contraptions. What are they called again. Those tellyphones? When I was a child, all I needed was two dollars in my pocket and I would go catch me a baseball game with some of my ol' buds. We be talking, not twitting on twitter or saying nonsense on that bookface website. Those whipper snappers need to be told off. They ain't gettin nothin done these days. Them kids don' even walk themselves to school. When I was their age, I had to walk 6 miles to my school and from school every mornin' and every evenin. I would wake up at 4 in the mornin just to milk the family cows and then go straight to work after school. Those kids need to learn the meaning of real work.
*End Scene*


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Thursday, September 4th

Tell me about what you have learned in this class so far. Have you learned a lot? Do you want to learn more? What do you want to be able to do by the end of the semester?

I have learned a lot in this class. I learned everything from from creating a blog like this one to HTML. In HTML, I learned about how to link pictures and words, how to change the background color and font color, and I learned how to make lists. I definitely want to learn more, especially in CSS. I want to learn how to decorate my website and make it look more sleek and original. I also want to learn more about making things more interactive on my website and the smaller more specific things that go into make a good website.

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Tuesday, September 2nd

Tell me all about your Labor Day weekend. What did you do? Include photos!

I didn't actually do much over my labor day weekend. I mostly just stayed home and slept. I finally started the Revenge of Seven by Pittacus Lore. I only got a couple pages in though because finding time to read has gotten a lot harder since high school started. I also had extra time last weekend to just write for a bit which was also fun. Its been forever since I have so it felt pretty nice. I also had time to practice my violin pieces that I had been ignoring for the past month, they still need more work though. On the other hand, Labor Day was pretty stressful though. I spent the other days ignoring my homework so it all piled it up on Monday. I also had 3 tests to study for which is always frustrating, but hey, I got through them! It was definitely nice having down time though. Even if I could have, I don't  I would have gone anywhere because I had needed to catch up on my sleep anyways. 

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Friday, August 29th

Read this small newspaper clipping and then write a blog post about it. What are your thoughts? How does it make you feel? Do you agree? Disagree? Explain yourself.

In my opinion, the newspaper article seems a little too forceful. It's true that teenagers need to start being a little responsible at their age but that doesn't mean they can't have fun. Even adults need to have fun and we as teenagers are barely older than kids. We still have a lot to learn in life and they only way to do that is by bending the rules a bit and making a few mistakes here and there. This article makes it seem like everyone has the weight of the world on their shoulders, but that isn't always true. In fact, its probably healthier to live a more care-free lifestyle. Looking at the world in this perspective can lead to stress and that is not beneficial to your health. It's true that we should contribute our energy to helping the world but that doesn't mean that's the only thing we're allowed to do in life. Also filling up all your time doing some of the activities mentioned above can have a negative impact on your relationships with others. Everyone needs time to just relax because having a mind set like this will not make a positive impact on your life.

Thursday, August 28th

Tell me if you agree with this statement and then explain why or why not. "Images on the internet are 'free game' - if someone posted it, I should be able to use it."

I do not agree with the statement above. I do not believe that a picture or anything created by another person should be taken without permission or unless credit is given. That piece of work was not created by you and people may not want their pictures going around the internet. Although one might say by posting the photo on the internet, they are already giving it up to anyone's use, I do not believe so. It basically plagiarism of another person's work and that is illegal. If you want to take a picture off the internet, all you have to do is quickly include a link or citation of where it came from. This cant take more than a few seconds to do!

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Tuesday, August 26th

Tell me a little bit about yourself and your life here at BVHS. What activities or clubs are you involved in? What year are you in school? What is your favorite class and/or teacher so far this year? What are you looking forward to this school year? Include some original photos from your phone if you can.

So far, my life at BVHS has been wonderful. As a freshman, it is a little awkward at first getting used to all the people and the distances between classes, but that was only at the beginning. Now its fun and I got to meet a new people too! So far I'm in Strings and French Club. I don't know what else I want to do yet, but I'm sure I'll figure it out soon. My favorite classes are probably Strings, Web Design, and Honors Biology. In all three of the classes, I can easily understand the concepts and it ends up making the class a lot more fun. I'm really looking forward to Strings Concerts because it's been a while since I've performed in an orchestra. I also can't wait to meet more of the freshman because I haven't really gotten to talk to a lot of the ones that aren't in at least one of my classes. All in all, its been a pretty neat experience.

Monday, August 25th

What do you know about Web Design right now? What did you know about Web Design before you walked in to this class? Tell me as much as you can about how web pages work. Try to use an example if possible.

Web Design is centered around the adding your own touch to the internet, whether it's designing and sharing your own thoughts on a blog like this or creating a website in you own style. It's all just about making a little part of the internet well... you. Before I joined Web Design, I did know a little HTML and I had tried blogging before but I could never figure out how a lot of the little things worked so I usually gave up. Now I know all about making the different parts of HTML like making the body, the head, all the little paragraphs, adding links, adding pictures, the <!DOCTYPE> tag, and all the basic fun stuff that goes into making the skeleton of your website. I understand now that HTML is the actual content and CSS is all the fancy designing and modifying you can add to it like messing with the font and its colors or playing around with the background. I also understand how almost everything in HTML uses opening and closing tags. 

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