Laura

I have been working on this project called Genius Hour for these past couple of months where you pick a topic and research about it. The topic I picked for this project was water skiing. It took me a while to pick at first because I was unsure of a project to do that could help people out but also I would enjoy. I started thinking about sports and the environment but I couldn’t find anything then I looked up different sports, that is when I found it, water skiing. I decided to pick this topic because I remember doing it in the summer and how much I enjoyed it, so I thought why not learn more about it since it could help me improve and it is something that catches my attention.

Jason Armstrong via Compfight

During this project I learned a lot. At first I wasn’t sure I was going to find that much information but researching proved me wrong. While researching I found about the different types of water skis there are, I thought there was only the type where you have two skis but it turns out that there is also slalom skiing which, as shown in the picture above, is with one ski. I also learned about the correct way to position yourself so you wouldn’t get injured or hurt after. In addition to this, I understood why we had to bring certain materials with you such as a life jacket. Lastly, I found out about the competitions and how the worked as well as what events they had. Some of the events tat are held are races where you see who can go the fastest, show where people do all sorts of tricks (as shown in the picture below), like the pyramid, there are jumps, where you jump off a ramp and do some sort of trick like a flip and then land perfectly onto the water. To come to think of it, water skiing is the exact same thing as skiing except it is on water instead of snow. The way you turn and position yourself is the exact same.

Ted Van Pelt via Compfight

Doing this project helped me grow as a person because it allowed me to learn more information and become more specialized with a subject but also helped me improve my skills and techniques. I say this because if I go water skiing again I will just think of this project and what I learned while doing it. It will allow me to be more safe and prevent me from getting hurt or have back problems. With all the information that I learned it could help the community and also the world because it could allow people who have never done it before or are willing to learn about new sports know about it and become aware of what they should do. It would save them some money because they wouldn’t need to spend it on getting lessons since the information given is enough for them to learn how to do it. However, it could also help the world because people could earn money and then donate it by holding an event. You could say for every meter that you go without falling people would pay you this amount of money and with every meter you stay standing you earn more money. This is helpful because it would not only motivate the skier to stay up for a while but it could also help organisations or the less fortunate since you could donate that money to them.

In my next Genius Hour project I was thinking about learning how to create an organization that would help the less fortunate out. For example providing them with education and learning how to use computers and books to help them find information but also provide them with food and water. In addition to this, they be treated fairly and learn to respect and help out one another. This would help the community around me because it would allow them to maybe get a job when they are older that would provide them with a good amount of money that they could survive on. It could also help people around the world and make them more aware of what is going on and influence them to do something like this.

UNICEF Ethiopia via Compfight

Here is a link to my presentation if you want to look through it

Zlatko Vickovic via Compfight

 Peter Thoeny – Quality HDR Photography via Compfight

Works Cited

Arnold, Kris. Beach. 5 March 2012. Flickr. 20 January 2017. https://www.flickr.com/photos/wka/6834658934/in/photolist-bpXpZ9-nBPjLy-5cZaXG-nUbrBy-nUiL1X-nUbkLq-nU1Sfa-o5Z49t-f8xCj2-5dngXb-nBPqw1-co5ou-onr5H7-q39ezT-bfB92H-nUbpSG-2aBu25-nBPFqS-4WKGWj-zriaUn-ncoHaY-6SEpNy-8JC3pt-3Hrpn-7mAKXG-94mwni-iikGf-4XtYyp-5grFsj-5PisS9-owgCmD-8JEGqf-9cbfaU-f8xVLr-3k1tvZ-JWK3J-9J1wSh-jUkH8-6bBXzR-4Bojnb-f8xBri-c3wMy3-3ESFg-3z9YFf-7KyEVP-dMf6QA-6aPERS-4d1fgj-6Vzc8e-5f2PeC/.

narendra44mail. Fish. 14 January 2014. Flickr. 20 January 2017.  https://www.flickr.com/photos/85315082@N07/11949320845/in/photolist-e6jGrq-jcVoMc-jcZAdm-biXizv-jcVk5n-8jxosF-7TrsYX-jcWS66-gRnqFT-doMRuT-gRnu3y-jcVkFn-5KpZme-e242pL-biXkHe-prmgtL-gRnsdR-76fqHM-bvkid4-gRntAm-6CXHQu-dWdT7U-dy8grj-fKpQyd-67J7QU-9x4SFm-dkjRXQ-67J9JY-8TsQsj-nLeUrd-5zsyYW-btYUco-pvZkU4-dKpj1w-ick4M2-ESqruE-aq4toy-fPtKYG-kWgZLv-qDxx2P-p7viQz-pQxyPP-8Xtyzd-qL2Ahk-emdEED-gRohHz-9pEysr-8q2vAx-bur5hU-5utSrF/.

During these past few weeks I have been doing a project called Genius Hour. My project was on water skiing and I wanted to know more information about it but from a different source, so I used twitter to communicate with experts.

I started following ten people on twitter of whom work in that field. I started to familiarize myself with them by liking their posted or writing a thank you post for the tweets they wrote about my subject. I made a list which contained ten people of which I thought were good for this project so that I could see all of their tweets at the same time. I started following @waterskiseth, @Jez_NR, @maustindesigns, @CParrish43, @AdamSedlmajer, @Swini_skis, @jMacSkis, @jaretllewellyn, @alexpoteau, and @BallOfSpray. I followed these people because when I looked at their feed they posted a lot of videos, posts and pictures of water skiing, so I understood that they worked in that field or enjoyed doing this very much but knew a lot about it.

These people relate to my Genius Hour Project because my project is water skiing and they talk a lot about the competitions and basic facts about it so during the process it helped me learn more about that field. Later on when I had tweeted more thank you posts I started asking them question to become more familiarized with my subject, to do so I wrote tweets and mentioned them in it. I wrote a different question for each person that way I could get a bigger variety of information. Some of the information I asked them was how to turn while slalom skiing, or how to keep your balance for a long time, what is the correct form to use, what their favorite thing is about water skiing, what is the most challenging part is about it.

This would help me in my project because it would allow me to learn how to get better form and understand how to stay up longer or to turn. This also, would have helped me understand what to look forward to or what I need to look out for, to sum it up it gave me more in depth information about how it works and how you do it.

Although this sounds like a great way to gather information it is not always useful because not everyone answers, sometimes no one replies.

While doing this I only got one response from @waterskiseth. It may not seem like a lot but he replied to my question in depth and made it clear so it gave me a better understanding. He was generous to respond to the question step by step since in twitter you can only post or reply within 140 characters so he replied in three comments. However during this experiment none of them followed me back which is not always necessary because I just mentioned them in the post so they are able to see it. They did not offer any more assistance they just simply replied to the question.

After the one person replied I did not continue the conversation or asked more questions because I didn’t have anymore and I was hoping the others would reply over the break since they usually have more time to check their social media.

This is a very helpful way of getting information which could help many people in different projects. This could help in the future because if you have a project that requires a lot of research you could find people in that field to help you out and give you more information. In addition to this they could give you feedback on anything you need help with.

here is the link to the image

If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments.

Do you ever take a moment to think about where YOU want to go? Well I do, a lot. I think about all the places I have been to and I think about which one was my personal favorite. I also think about places I want to go to for example the Maldives. I’ve seen so many pictures and it looks amazing. The water, the hotels everything about it. It looks like it would be a dream place. If you like the beach and swimming then this is the place to go.

There are tons of activities you can do. First off, you can relax at your resort. Some have stairs at their cabin that go into the water and others have a pool too. You can tan on the porch or on the beach. If you like looking at the corals or different types of fishes you can go snorkeling or scuba diving. If you want to slide on the water you can go water skiing or wake boarding. If you like to fly you can water jet skiing. Relaxing is your thing? there are spas and yoga or Pilates.  In addition to all this, you can go parasailing, paragliding, boat tours, on a speed boat, shark diving, kayaking & canoeing and dolphin & whale watching. As you can there are many different activities to do but the majority require water so if you don’t like water this is not the place to go.

If I had the choice I would go there in a flash. It may be far from where you live or expense but trust me it is worth it, you will not regret the choice. There is sun and amazing water. If you get a chance to go there you will probably think it’s the most beautiful water you’ve seen, so clear and clean. The coral reefs are beautiful and alive with a wide variations of fishes in which you can’t find everywhere you go. There are sea turtles, dolphins, whale sharks, parrot fish, box fish, red-toothed trigger fish and many more. So if you get the opportunity I highly recommend the Maldives.

here are some links if you want to read more about it.

Tell me in the comments:

What do you think about it?

Have you ever been to the Maldives?

Would you like to go there?

I go to a school called the International School of Dakar. We are about 500 people in our community, it is really nice to be around them but they are also downfalls to this. Let me talk about the pros first. A lot of people at ISD are kindhearted. The majority of us get along well with one another. You get the opportunity to meet a lot of new friends, you get to learn more about different types of religions or cultures and also countries. I say this because in an international school there are people from every continent. They all come here with a different mindset, background and family or traditions. Another pro to this is that you can learn from people everyday, things you never even expected to be true or happen. Lastly, it allows you to open up because you meet new people and learn to allow people to join you. Even though this might sound great there are also cons to being in a community. You could be around people who bully you a lot, there could be people you don’t get along with (which is normal you don’t need to get along with everyone) and lastly there could be conflicts or dramas. Some people just can’t live without problems or something interesting to them like drama so they then create some on the tinniest thing. People are also not always open so they could push you away or just not want to hang out with you but there will always be other people there for you. There you have it, the pros and cons of being in a community. Keep this in mind for next time you join one.

here is a picture of a community

My school goes by a confusing schedule. We have 8 class periods and 8 days. Our weekends are Saturday and Sunday. We have four classes per day, they each last 80 minutes. We divided our classes into even and odds so that on days 1,3,5 and 7 we have our odd classes and on days 2,4,6 and 8 we have our even classes. On day one we have period 1 then a ten minute break then period 3 then lunch then period 5 then ten minute break then period 7. It is like that every day except with different periods. On day two we have periods 2,4,6,8, on day three we have periods 3,5,7,1, on day four we have periods 4,6,8,2, on day fie we have periods 5,7,1,3, on day six we have periods 6,8,2,4, on day seven we have periods 7,1,3,5, and lastly on day eight we have periods 8,2,4,6. So as you can see the first class depends on what day it is and then we go in order from there. In addition to this, we have different classes to go to between the period before lunch and lunch. On Mondays we have something called community meeting where all of high school meets up together or we have a grade level meeting, on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays we have extended block where we just stay in that class and we can do homework from other classes, lastly on Thursdays we have advisory/ homeroom. We go to school for the majority of the year, we start school around the 12 of August and end school around the beginning of June. We have many different long weekends due to holidays but our long holidays are in fall we have one week, in winter we have three weeks and in spring we have one week off.

I hope you learned a lot about my school schedule. If you have any questions you can leave it in the comments down below.

If you are new at blogging and commenting, then here are a few tips on how to write good comments:

1. This makes me think of … because of …
2. I agree with what you are saying. I think it shows/ represents …
3. I can relate to this. I was/this happened to me/ I remember when my …
4. I really liked your post. I think this shows how…
5. I enjoyed reading your post, but I think another thing to consider is…

I hope this helped you and you will use these when you write a comment next time.

I have written many different types of comments on peoples post but there are always thoughts about commenting so here are mine. I like commenting because it allows me to know the person more and it helps us think deeper about the post and makes us think about what the person wrote. However, there are also negatives, what I dislike about commenting is that it can be hard to express what you are feeling. Also, sometimes you think about how it an relate to something you did which then you need to explain in a way that is clear. Furthermore, I comment on posts that capture my attention, what I mean by this is that fist off the title needs to be interesting then I start reading the post and if I get inspired or I really like the post then I comment on it. My posts also get comments though even though there are not a lot, but I do get quality comments because people express their feelings and give examples of what happened to them which shows they know what I’m talking about. There you have it, my thoughts on commenting.

Leave a comment if you can relate or agree. 🙂

I only have one favorite sport, volleyball. I started volleyball in 7th grade and I am now in 9th grade so this is my third year. I never knew I could like a sport so much, but I can tell you that this year was by far my favorite. I started volleyball this season with one of my close friends. During the season I was asked to join the a team which was really fun. I was the only freshman and it allowed me to meet a bunch of new people from other grades who I later on became really good friends with. At the end of each season we have this event called WAISAL where we travel to another west African country and we compete against other schools. I was asked to go to this event. I had the time of my life. I met more people and enjoyed myself while I played volleyball and chilled with my team mates. It allowed me to get closer to them and this is something I do not regret. I still see them every day at school and talk to them. They changed my life, they are caring and are always there for me which is something I am extremely grateful for.

For my Genius Hour Project I worked on baking. Since I already knew how to bake I did it on how to bake better cupcakes. I chose this project because baking is something I enjoy doing. I bake for my friends birthdays, family birthdays, projects and sometimes on my free time. This project has allowed me to discover many new types of cupcakes and also decorations I could do. This is not all that I learned, I also learned how to make better tasting cupcakes with real ingredients or leaving them out so they are all at room temperature. In addition to this it would also help the world because I could make a bake sale and earn money to donate to charities or talibe. I could also give the cupcakes to them because they are not rich and so can not afford to buy much food. Therefore, for my genius hour I learned a lot and also came up with ideas to help the world in different ways.