Conflict in “Lamb to the Slaughter”–Found Poem

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This is a found poem I created with words from Roald Dahl’s short story, “Lamb to the Slaughter” , to display the conflict that is presented in the story. From the first three words of the poem– “Mary Maloney” and “husband” –it can be known that the two main characters in the story are Mary Maloney, the protagonist, and her husband, Patrick Maloney, being the antagonist. The reason for these two characters to be identified respectively in these roles, as stated, is in fact because of their stance in the conflict of the story. The plots in “Lamb to the Slaughter” revolve around the conflict that Patrick poses to the protagonist, Mary–which also the reason that made Patrick the antagonist. To clarify the conflict specifically, in the story, Mary’s husband, Patrick, allusively announced on one evening that he has an affair and will be leaving her—a heavily pregnant woman: in other words, he is divorcing her. From the poem and paragraph 35 of the story, this can be justified with the phrases, “I’ll give you money”, “see you’re looked after” and “I’m going out”. These phrases shows that Patrick, the antagonist” has made his decision and desires for a divorce. Additionally, I’ve also picked out phrases like “dazed horror” and “reject it all” to show how Mary respond emotionally and mentally to the problem her husband poses to her. It is evident that she was overwhelmed by the feeling of betrayal from his husband and wished to “find none of it had ever happened”, which further implies how the protagonist, Mary, is enduring conflict—posed by her husband—from their opposing desires. From the above pieces of evidence, it stands in reason that the conflict in this story is a character versus character conflict, which also means that it is an external conflict.

Link about the author

Additional information about the story

Leather Project Reflection–Product Design

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How does this product solve my initial problem: My initial problem was that tools with sharp tips like scissors and knives need its carrier to hold it on its tip or hold it upwards to ensure that it won’t hurt other people around while walking, yet this safety measure is easy to forget about, especially at schools (design or art class). Therefore, I decided to make a scissor sheath to help protect its carrier and the people around; meanwhile, it can also help maintain the cleanness of the scissor.

A skill I learned: An important skill I learned is hand sewing.  As far as I could remember, I’ve never actually hand sew anything before, yet I do believe that it is an important skill to possess. In this project, I needed it to connected the two pieces of leather together, so I asked the teacher in the sewing station to teach me this skill.

My most important decision in this project: I think my most important decision in this project was deciding to do hand sewing instead of using the sewing machine. The first time I try to make sew my two-piece of leather together I used the sewing machine to do it. It ended up in a failure because my pieces of leather are too small and curved for it. The next time I decided to hand sew the pieces. Even though it was much slower than the sewing machine, but it was a success.

Design–Using Fake Leather

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In this new unit of Product Design, we were asked to design something that solves a problem in our life–by using a piece of fake leather. In the brainstorming process, I thought of ideas in the area of making improvements/repairs.  I looked for ideas of problems that I can solve in the design lab and searched for images of leather products on google.  Finally, I decided to design a scissor sheath that will protect its users from hurting themselves or others with the tip of the scissor–while carrying it around; at the same time, it can protect the scissor from getting dirty when it’s not being used. I got my inspiration from the scissors in the design lab and pictures of knife sheaths.

 

 

Smell Detector–Design Reflection

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In this Product Design unit, we were asked to design a handheld smell detector and make a prototype of our design (the prototype will be mostly made out of foam and cardboard). To get inspiration for our smell detector design I searched up images of different handheld objects. I got inspired by the design of the temperature gun and the Ophone—which is a device that enables smell messaging. I took a few parts—that inspired me—from each design and added these ideas into my design, such as the idea of the display screen on the back of the temperature gun and the opening on the top part of the Ophone—which I believe is where the smells get in/out of the device. In addition, my favorite part of my smell detector is its handle. As shown in the above photos, the handle is designed to be in a curved shape so it will be more comfortable to grip on.
How it works:
In the photos that are attached to the post, you may notice that there’s a switch on the side of the handle. Sliding the switch downwards will turn on the device; it will then suck the smell in. The smell will first go through the opening on the top of the device—so it would be captured inside the detector. Thereafter, it will be detected and identified. When you turn on the display screen by pressing the black button, a signal will be sent from the detector to the display screen. It will display a picture of the smell that has been identified and provides the user some information about the smell.

Design–Lightbox Reflection

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For our first Product design unit, we were asked to create a lightbox that had a scenery of a place/landscape that is special or important to us but didn’t get the chance to visit because of COVID. We first searched up images of three different places that are special to us and chose one of them for our lightbox design. I chose to feature the landscape of an island of Maldives—which we were planning to visit again. I split the image into five layers, ranging from the background (sky), palm trees & bushes, wooden houses, the beach, and seawater.

I learned and developed various skills in this project including the skills I learned using Adobe Illustrator, using acrylic paint & masking tape, and separating an image into layers, etc. I developed numerous skills that had to do with using the Adobe Illustrator, since I’ve never used it before; which includes but does not limited to changing the color of the outlines of icons/shapes, creating shapes and adjusting their sizes, as well as turning solid icons into lines through a quick process of image tracing and expand. To make our lightbox layers, we found icons from a website called Noun Project and learned how to join icons together to make out the features of our lightbox layers.

My biggest obstacle was adjusting the size of the palm tree icons that I selected. At first, I chose a really realistic palm tree icon that I favored, and they looked perfectly fine with the bushes icons until I realized that the trunks of the trees were too thin; meaning that there’s a big chance that they will break apart.  I tried to adjust the width of the tree trunks, but it doesn’t work since they are already connected and grouped with the bushes. As result, I deleted and re-did the entire layer, which surprisingly didn’t take me much time to do so. I picked another palm tree icon that has a wider tree trunk and repeated the steps I did last time, which gave me the final product in the above photos.

Something I’d like to change about my lightbox is that I would make my second layer higher (the palm trees and bushes) or make the palm trees bigger so that there wouldn’t be so much “blank” space in the upper part of my lightbox. Since I joined these icons with a rectangle I can simply change the height of the rectangle to make it happen.

Overall, I think my lightbox was a success because it turned out to look pretty similar to the actual image I chose. The LED light behind the palm trees and the orange acrylic paint in the back made it look relatively like a real sunset—when the lights are switched on. The sizes of my lightbox layers are also just right to make out the image and are all able to fit inside the box.

Percy Jackson Informative Assignment

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How does Percy’s attitude toward school and emotional management impact Percy’s choices and behavior? How could he improve? 

ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) is a common condition experienced by a number of people—particularly specifying on young people/adolescents in academic years–and it impacts how they behave. Percy’s choices and behaviors are impacted by ADHD, in terms of his attitude toward school and emotional management; this situation could be improved with the help of mindfulness practices, his teachers, and relevant tools and apps. ADHD is often revealed with hyperactivity symptoms that are associated with self-control. As a result, individuals with ADHD often experience difficulties in terms of regulating their emotions. These challenges may greatly impact such an individual’s well-being, self-esteem, and school performance/attitude.

On page 5 of the book, “The Lightning Thief”, where Percy shouts out in the museum to Nancy Bobofit, “Will you shut up!?”, and later noted that the statement “came out louder than I meant”. Since blurting out things in class is classified as one of the hyperactivity symptoms—based on the Newsela article (Neurodiversity: A different view of ADHD) —ADHD was clearly shown to be a major cause for his inappropriate behavior, in the social setting of the museum. Furthermore, getting easily distracted and being unable to focus/pay attention, is another symptom that ADHD suffers experience. This affects Percy quite drastically and this can be seen when he says, “What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years” (p. 38).

Furthermore, on page 7, Percy had stated that “Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I have never made above a C- in my life”. In these lines, we see how Percy says in a very matter of fact way that ADHD appears to be one of the main factors that impacted his learning and behavior in school. In addition, Percy exhibits very low self-esteem, resulting in a negative spiral in terms of how he sees himself and making him believe that he is incapable of getting good results. This has gradually caused Percy to establish a habitual negative and/or resentful attitude towards school. Further evidence of his lack of interest can be seen when his English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asks him, “for the millionth time why he was too lazy to study for spelling test”, Percy called him an “old sot” (pg.17). Based on research from the website, “Thriving with ADHD” states that frustration for individuals with ADHD is likely to result in verbal and physical aggression; Percy’s behavior fits this pattern. An individual’s emotional response can be problematic in that it can have a negative impact on social relationships and including attitude toward school.

Nonetheless, Percy’s choices and behaviors could still be improved. While emotional agility is one of the strongest indicators of success in business and life; this ability to self-regulate is influenced by whether or not an individual has been eating well, getting enough sleep, exercising, and participating in stress-relieving activities, etc. On top of that, emotional mastery entails a self-awareness where individuals not only recognize their emotions but also realize how these emotions impact their behaviors. Thus, to improve emotional management, Percy can first start off with practicing mindfulness; it is a proven way to gain perspective on self-feelings. As Percy begin developing an awareness of his feelings, he will then be able to pay closer attention to how he is behaving, and how his behavior is influencing/impacting others. Meanwhile, according to the Newsela article, “people who have ADHD could be very focused when something interests them”. Percy’s teachers could try figuring out what interests Percy and help him set up a study plan; especially towards supporting him in the areas of his interest. This action could help him develop a more positive attitude towards school. The knock-on effect is that it would help with how he relates to the different persons he comes into contact with. Moreover, as a matter of fact, there are as well many tools and apps to help someone get organized (cited from the Newsela article). Since people could be easily distracted during certain times or activities, and especially people who have ADHD–as an example: Percy–a variety of different apps and tools are designed to help. These sorts of tools can help people keep track of their time, build better habits, and improve work efficiency, which will greatly help improve one’s self-management skills.

Percy had made a range of choices relevant to school behavior/performance, in chapters 1-3. All above explanation concludes that ADHD impacts Percy on his emotional management and his attitude toward school, with symptoms including blurting out things in a social setting, low self-esteem, verbal and physical aggression. He could accordingly improve these behaviors with mindfulness practices–which helps enhance his self-awareness–, a study plan, and relevant tools/apps.

Ocean Habitat Science Mini Project

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What is your biggest take away from 6th-grade science?
I’ve learned many new things that I don’t know and/or understand. More importantly, this year, science is finally formally introduced to me.
What would you like to work on for next year in science?
I would like to work on things about electricity for next year.

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In this unit, “Our stories make History”, we are creating our own primary sources. We are achieving this goal by recording the experiences, emotions, and thoughts we have during this historical time–the coronavirus outbreak. The projects we’ve done include but are not limited to, writing journals, writing timelines, taking notes from news articles, and creating collages.
This, shown below, is the final project of the unit. As I’ve said, we’ve done many different things in this unit, so in this final project, we are selecting some of them and putting these pieces together.

The elements I selected for this project are a six-word memoir, a collage I made, an emotional timeline(there’s also news articles notes I took), a diary I wrote & a recording of it, pictures of news articles & citations, a screenshot I took(it’s a screenshot of the web page of Baidu), and a song parody I wrote with my friends. I put them in this order for a reason. The six-word memoir is placed on the first page because I think it sums up my experiences during this time, and could kind of lead the reader into the mood(my experiences). The collage, placed after it, then gives a further visual information/explanation of the memoir and my experience.  After that, the timeline and the journal that’s placed on the third and fourth page, could both provide a more detailed and textual version of my experiences. Finally, the rest of the elements are kind of the additional details that are placed in the order of the time I created them.

This primary source could be useful to a historian because I included/provided firsthand descriptions, information, and evidence about this event, which is the coronavirus outbreak, in it.

The thing that went well for me in this unit is that I’m able to finish the projects on time. I am also proud of my journal since I kind of did a good job of keeping this routine every day.
However there are also a few challenges for me in this unit. The major one is that I had some trouble with recording down my thoughts and emotions on my timeline and my journal. This because I was trapped at home, due to the virus, so there’s really not much key moments for me. Yet, at the end, I solved this problem by writing the more daily events and thoughts.

Early human and Us Thinglink Project–The Development of Communication

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This is my “Early Human and Us” Thinglink project for my humanities class. My topic for this project is explaining how communication has developed over time, and how its development has affected humans throughout history. This Thinglink below include a timeline of the development of communication, a paragraph about my topic, images of the early human form of communication, an image of the modern human form of communication, and source links.