Journey of Self Discovery |
First Innovations Project
I struggled greatly with starting this project. Throughout my life, I have always identified myself as a 'creative'. Despite this, It was very difficult to ideate on command, in a way. I felt that being asked or assigned to be creative and come up with a project that relates to me stifled all of the creativity within me. I started by trying to think of things that I identify with, things that I enjoy, traits that I have, etc. This was slightly difficult to do but I was able to come up with a genuine list of things that weren't all jokes at my own expense. In innovations class, we did many exercises to gather our thoughts and come up with real things about ourselves. I then took these to try and think of a visual piece that would tie everything together. This did not lead to anything... I was still lost on what to do. An idea finally started to form one day when I was listening to The Beatles' Revolver. It is such a wonderfully designed cover (and a wonderful album). I decided I'd try to recreate the cover and the style using people and influences from my own life. Unfortunately, I am not in any way an artist. My attempts at drawing my own rendition of the cover were all very ugly, so I scrapped that idea. I thought this train of thought wasn't worth pursuing after this. BUT, I realized that The Beatles (my favorite band) have OTHER albums! Mind=Blown. I looked through my library and decided that the Sgt. Peppers album was visually pleasing and would be simple to recreate using photoshop apps on my phone. I compiled a folder on my phone of 70 some photos that are most dear to me- important people, things, places, and events in my life- and started adding them in the same manner as the album cover. It was very fun to play around with the coloring and placement of everything. I ended up with a really colorful recreation of the Sgt Pepper's album using my own photos that I absolutely love. It definitely is not as deep as it could have been because it doesn't include much about my values and who I truly am as a person, but it does show things that are important to me and what makes me happy which I think is important. |
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Making A Positive Impact
Started the week of 9/18
This week's project is to do 3 things that increase in meaning and effort for a person in my life. I had a lot of difficulty deciding who to focus my efforts on, but I eventually decided on a good friend of mine that I never have the chance to really talk to anymore. Things have been very difficult for her lately because one of her close friends just died, and she has been slowly isolating herself from our friend group for a while now. I figured, if anyone needed to be cheered up, it's her. I also struggled quite a bit with coming up with my steps, because I work every day after school and don't have much time on the weekends either, but I made it work.
SO! The first step of my, for lack of a better word, project, was to just compliment her and consciously include her in everything I could while at school. I pass her in the halls a few times each day so I made sure to say something that I knew would be more meaningful than my usual "hi". This was such an easy thing to do because there really is so much to compliment her on. Later that day she texted, "Love you a bunches" just out of the blue. Success.
Step two was to call her on the phone and just talk. This was a really fun one because we were on the phone for nearly an hour one night last week, just talking about things and any new developments we have in our oh-so-thrilling lives. We also talked about a lot of issues that we have both been having with certain friends that we have. Personally, it was really relieving to be able to talk about the good and bad things that are happening. I'm sure that she felt just as good after our long chat because she does tend to withhold herself from most of our friend group for various reasons.
Step three was the long awaited early morning BABS date. I cornered her at her car a few days ago to ask if she'd be interested in waking up early for breakfast, and she looked so genuinely touched that I would ask. I was so happy to see her her happy after the awful things that she has been going through lately. So, Wednesday morning at our arranged time of 6:48 am, we met at Big Apple Bagels. She made fun of me for drinking a large cherry coke so early in the morning and I made fun of her for freaking out about the pumpkin spice coffee and it was wonderful.
I was initially very unsure and not excited about this project because it felt a little weird to me. I didn't want to spend time with someone just for a project and then go back to the way it was before, but I was afraid that that was how it was going to turn out. After I came up with my plan, though, I was much more excited about it. I knew that the outcome would be genuine because of who I decided to do (a really great friend) and also because of the positive impact that it had on both her and I.
This week's project is to do 3 things that increase in meaning and effort for a person in my life. I had a lot of difficulty deciding who to focus my efforts on, but I eventually decided on a good friend of mine that I never have the chance to really talk to anymore. Things have been very difficult for her lately because one of her close friends just died, and she has been slowly isolating herself from our friend group for a while now. I figured, if anyone needed to be cheered up, it's her. I also struggled quite a bit with coming up with my steps, because I work every day after school and don't have much time on the weekends either, but I made it work.
SO! The first step of my, for lack of a better word, project, was to just compliment her and consciously include her in everything I could while at school. I pass her in the halls a few times each day so I made sure to say something that I knew would be more meaningful than my usual "hi". This was such an easy thing to do because there really is so much to compliment her on. Later that day she texted, "Love you a bunches" just out of the blue. Success.
Step two was to call her on the phone and just talk. This was a really fun one because we were on the phone for nearly an hour one night last week, just talking about things and any new developments we have in our oh-so-thrilling lives. We also talked about a lot of issues that we have both been having with certain friends that we have. Personally, it was really relieving to be able to talk about the good and bad things that are happening. I'm sure that she felt just as good after our long chat because she does tend to withhold herself from most of our friend group for various reasons.
Step three was the long awaited early morning BABS date. I cornered her at her car a few days ago to ask if she'd be interested in waking up early for breakfast, and she looked so genuinely touched that I would ask. I was so happy to see her her happy after the awful things that she has been going through lately. So, Wednesday morning at our arranged time of 6:48 am, we met at Big Apple Bagels. She made fun of me for drinking a large cherry coke so early in the morning and I made fun of her for freaking out about the pumpkin spice coffee and it was wonderful.
I was initially very unsure and not excited about this project because it felt a little weird to me. I didn't want to spend time with someone just for a project and then go back to the way it was before, but I was afraid that that was how it was going to turn out. After I came up with my plan, though, I was much more excited about it. I knew that the outcome would be genuine because of who I decided to do (a really great friend) and also because of the positive impact that it had on both her and I.
Innovations E-Learning
Choose two skills from the list above where you feel confident. Provide evidence to support your claim.
Complex problem solving- I feel confident in this topic after our design thinking training. There is obviously still room to grow, but I do think that I have come a long way in developing my own problem-solving approach.
Coordinating with others- I think that this means partnership and working well with a team which I think I am strong at. I am a good communicator and I really enjoy hearing other people’s perspectives and working well with them.
Choose two skills from the list above where there is room for improvement. Describe how you will go about improving in this area.
Negotiation- I have a slight fear of confrontation when it’s not completely positive, so this skill is something I have yet to develop.
Judgement and decision making- I think that I need to work on making initial judgments based solely on emotional responses and more on logical thinking. I need a good mix of both.
Complex problem solving- I feel confident in this topic after our design thinking training. There is obviously still room to grow, but I do think that I have come a long way in developing my own problem-solving approach.
Coordinating with others- I think that this means partnership and working well with a team which I think I am strong at. I am a good communicator and I really enjoy hearing other people’s perspectives and working well with them.
Choose two skills from the list above where there is room for improvement. Describe how you will go about improving in this area.
Negotiation- I have a slight fear of confrontation when it’s not completely positive, so this skill is something I have yet to develop.
Judgement and decision making- I think that I need to work on making initial judgments based solely on emotional responses and more on logical thinking. I need a good mix of both.