OC#1: Laptops at School.

I see why teachers would be concerned with students using their own computers rather than using the school's. It can be a waste of free time. For me that isn't a problem because even if I were to bring in my laptop, I still get all my work turned in and I maintain high grades, so bringing a laptop to school wouldn't affect my grades. Now, I can't say that for everyone. There are some kids that probably should be using their free time to do homework rather than surf the internet.

Do Not Want.

After reading the Tipping Point and nearly forcing myself to finish it, I'm not so sure I want to read another Gladwell book. The Tipping Point was, well, boring and I'm not entirely sure if the Blink book is going to be any different.

OPP

The Price in Right (Kyle)
OC#2: Interim week.

That's really cool, Kyle! I remember you talking about that last year. Isn't the movie "Reservation Road"?
Anyway, I have to agree with you, interim is a great learning experience for the students at Linworth and if there is anyone at the AP who isn't doing an interim simply because they "don't feel like" they have no idea the opportunities that they are missing out on.

Interim.

For interim next week, my friend and I are going to do a self-guided study/ mentorship. For three days (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday) we are going to be working at the Carriage Place Rec. centre with a pottery teacher. There, we will be working with clay and paint. As well as pottery and painting, we will also be writing as a self-guided study.

Planning was complicated because we had to come up with what we wanted to do first (also because of parents disliking the idea of a joint interim) and it took us past the packet due date. Luckily, we were able to get an extension.

I like interim the way it's set up now. Students, for the most part, take advantage of the time given to them for their interim. The only main problem I've seen the past two years that I have been at Linworth, is making a final descion on what to do during the week of. I guess having some volunteer work (like what Jen used as an exmaple) as an option would be good. The list could help or hinder students, really. The whole "coming to a final descion"-thing again. But having it avaliable would be nice.

War.

Ever since we stopped getting the newspaper here at home, I've been a little behind on the events in Iraq. I do read on it every now and then when there's an article on the front page of Yahoo! but that's about as involved as I get. But all that one really needs to know is that war is costly in both money and lives.


So far my stance on bringing the troops home is that we'd have to do it over an extended period of time because if we pull out to fast we could have another Vietnam or Korea situation (they basically fell apart because our troops were withdrawn to quickly).

Now, know that I do not support McCain, nor do I support Hillary or Obama, but like John McCain said, we could be there for the next hundred years. But NOT in a combat situation. We still have troops over in Germany sixty years after WWII but not in a combat situation, so there is the possiblity of us being in the Middle East for quite so time, too. We "put" Saddam in power and we took him out, so now we're dealing with the consequences of our own imperialism. We went and got ourselves far too involved with someone else's business.

Reading & Reflection

I thought The Tipping Point was alright.

The chapters, I felt, were dragged out with lots of detail, too much detail. Most of the examples used seemed to be very bland and uninteresting. The Stickiness factor was hardest for me to get a grasp on because of all time he put into describing the studies on the kids and Seasame Street. I didn't make the connection until he sumed up his point in the end of the chapter. Almost every chapter was like that for me.

If it weren't for all of the "pointless" detail the author put into this book I probably would have had a better time reading. The context as a whole seemed very dry. I almost had to force myself to read at times. Also I would get so lost in all of the examples Gladwell would give that I would forget what the overall purpose of the chapter was and the point he was trying to make.

I felt this book could have been better. But, on the other hand, it did give me a wider perspective of trends in society.

Honestly, though, I'm glad we're finished with it.