BEGINNINGS

Working on my masterpiece has helped me begin the next chapter of my life because all of the research that I have done has given me a whole new mindset on how to achieve my goals. It's given me a new prospective that I wish I would have had all throughout highschool, a mindset that I know will help me succeed in college and enjoy the journey at the same time. I have a hard time balancing work and play. I either will work so hard that I don't allow myself any down time or I become so distracted from the work part that I tend to lose myself to the play which is not a good thing. I've realized that there is a balance and that that balance is crucial. It's important to work hard and stay motivated and determined but also to take a little fun time every now and then to ensure a positive and happy outlook. I think that this is a very important lesson to take with me while I transition into one of the biggest changes of my life so far.

CONNECTIONS

The central idea and topic behind my masterpiece has been coming up in nearly everything I do. Because senior year is coming to an end, I have been faced with some of the biggest decisions of my life along with my fellow graduating class mates. Choosing what we want to do with the rest of our lives and what college we will be attending are some of the biggest commitments and decisions we will ever have to face and are the biggest factor in causing so much stress this time of the year, at least for me anyways. When thinking about the rest of my life and what comes next I try to think of what I want to see myself doing. When I feel stressed out and become too overwhelmed I think of things that will make me happy and that I will enjoy because finding the balance between working hard and doing things to keep you happy is the ultimate key to success.

Request for Response

        The first two articles discuss the roles of parents and how they influence their children. Parents are a child's first and potentially most important role model and teacher in life. The very first article, "Raising a Moral Child" by Adam Grant explains the influence of parents and adults have over the development of their child's character and development as a person. It explains studies that have proved that children learn by example and will in some ways learn from watching the adults around them. It also explains how, as a role model, you should parent and which actions you should take in order to be successful in raising your child. A huge factor in teaching kids to become high achievers in the world is to know when and how to praise them accordingly. Researchers suggest that praising effort instead of actual ability is crucial  to help children develop stronger work ethic and become more motivated in general. Praise is found to be much more effective than actual rewards. Rewards may teach the children to only do good things when there is something in it for them, where praise makes the child feel good about what they have done and will make them want to do those good things again. Its also been found that when a child's character is complimented or praised, that child is much more likely to repeat those actions until they become good habits rather than if the adults were to just praise whatever the action had been. When a child's character is praised, it helps them identify with their identities and who they are becoming as people. "When our actions become a reflection of our character, we lean more heavily toward the moral and generous choices. Over time it can become part of us.", this quote from the article explains the process of how praise to a child's character can help shape them as they grow up. Negative feedback is just as crucial in a developing child. How parents and adults respond to bad behavior has varying results as well. Typically there are two moral emotions felt by children after doing something bad; shame and guilt. Shame is not something we want our children to feel, shame being a negative judgement about one's self which can make the child feel worthless. Guilt on the other hand is a negative judgement about an action which can be changed with good behavior. I believe that it's extremely important and necessary for parents and adults to realize the effect that how they handle certain situations can have on their children or any child for that matter. How they choose to react to a specific situation multiple times can really shape the child's character in a positive or negative way.
           I don't think that there are enough people out there who realize how much of an influence they are to the children in their life. Children listen and react to everything they see those around them do. They are sponges absorbing everything that is going around them which is really important to realize and remember, making sure to lead by a good example. Although I have not yet personally raised my own child, I have three younger siblings and have watched my parents do their absolute best in raising all of us and I have seen how important it is to praise your children when it's necessary and how to properly care and be there for your children. I think that ultimately, every parent's real goal is to not only have happy children but to have their kids turn out to be good people; generous and caring people. It's necessary to start leading them towards the right path at a young age in order for them to develop good character.

RAISING DIGITAL AWARENESS

It's important to draw visitors to your site/blog because it's important that our ideas and words are heard. Putting our own thoughts into words and uploading them onto the internet to share with others is a huge deal that we are lucky enough to be able to use in our day and age. It's such a fast and easy way to allow our voices to be heard.  Currently my blog is the home of many of my thoughts that i have posted to share with whoever decides to visit my blog. I believe that by voicing your opinion and ideas you are addressing the needs of all visitors because you have provided your own information to the rest of the world. To improve the value of my blog I think it would be smart to try and improve in each of the 10 different suggestions by Steve Pavlina. By making a point to put more effort and improve the value of the content by making sure that it holds importance and is worth reading, making sure that what I write and share is always original and my own thoughts and ideas, creating content that will hold its value and importance many years from now, remembering that although its being posted to the internet real people are reading my words, remembering why I'm writing and why it's important to me, letting the real me show through my posts, remembering to always write about what I believe to be true whether it's a shared belief or not, taking the readers into mind at all times, and always knowing that money is not always the most important factor. Although technology is a crucial tool in communicating these ideas with the rest of the world, it would be utterly impossible without actual human ideas and interactions, which I believe to be much more important. Technology is only a tool that helps us all share these ideas in such a huge way. It allows to interact with people all over, but again this would be impossible without our thoughts and ideas.

Literature Analysis: A Fault in Our Stars by John Green

1.  The exposition is the opening of the story when the struggle of being a teenager with a terminal illness is explained and described through the voice of Hazel. We see how her diagnosis of cancer has changed her life. Her attitude towards school, her parents, her peers, and life in general has been greatly altered since she became ill.

IS THERE AN EXPERT IN THE HOUSE?

My ultimate idea of an expert, as I've mentioned before is Ellen Degeneres. She is someone who has worked so hard to get to where she is now and has managed to find complete and utter success in doing what she loves to do. She is such an inspiration and has gained the admiration from people all over the world. She manages to work hard but also enjoy her life which is a balance that I believe a lot of people lose along the way.

THIS IS ONLY A TEST

In class the past couple of days we have discussed the different kinds of tests. In conclusion we've agreed that there are essentially two different types of tests. One type being the stereotypical test we receive in class 'testing' our knowledge on the criteria we're being taught. The old multiple choice test is a very common method of test taking that being seniors in high school we have all grown very familiar with. This kind of test, although does test our memory, doesn't truly express our understanding and definitely not our thinking. The second type of test is more figurative. Life tests, lessons that test our character sometimes or our true understanding of a concept or idea by proving it other than filling in answer bubbles. For my masterpiece project, although a test or 2 of the first type may be necessary, I believe that the second kind of test works much for effectively when attempting to put out my own ideas and study what I am passionate about. This masterpiece is a test itself, it's testing me on my knowledge of the future and how I will get to where I need and want to be.