Project Reflection: A Hero in My Eyes

1. To me, a hero becomes a hero when they have been defined that way by another. This is because a hero is different to each person. For instance, some people consider Soldiers heroes, others do not. It really is defined to each person as that way. And every hero, regardless of by who or what they have done, have been defined by someone as a hero. To me, that is all that matters.
2. Project Description: In the A Hero in My Eyes project we had to create a character sketch of a person that had created a personal impact (meaning we knew them personally) on us. The pieces were accompanied by two black and white photos, one portrait and one full body, that we had taken ourselves of our heroes.
3. Process: I first interviewed my hero, Ms. Lopaz, the Director for High Tech Middle Media Arts. I then typed up that manuscript and wrote the first draft of my character sketch. After a peer review I edited my rough draft and re-wrote it. This was then edited by Charlotte, our teacher, and edited again by myself. I then added in word of the days and made it more picturesque. I also then took the photos of Ms. Lopaz that I needed. After I had my final drafts of everything I put it into the class template along with a blurb about my hero that I had written.
4. Reflection: In this project I didn't really run into any problems while writing my piece. However, I did have to cut it down from 2.5 pages to 2 pages which was really hard to do without missing content or getting rid of some great sensory details and figurative language. In the end I was able to do it though and learned to cut my paper down while keeping the important content. I also encountered a problem when I was trying to put my photos into Adobe InDesign. The photos became very pixelated in the template, but after much trial and error I was able to convert the files into high quality using Adobe Illustrator. This solved the pixelation and taught me to not be afraid of technology. Overall I learned a lot in this project. I learned how to write a character sketch, conduct an interview, and use InDesign as well us cut down my papers efficiently.
5. Habits of Mind: I really think I used the habits of mind ownership in this project a lot. I constantly asked myself the question, "Is this my best work?" and "How can I make it better?". Because of this I was able to produce better writing than I initially thought I could do.
   
6. Artifact: http://lunaeve.blogspot.com/2009/11/redefine-impossible.html
7. Picture: The picture above shows how people really define others as heroes. Some say the only heroes are those in capes. Some say that's ridiculous. But I'm sure if you were to ask the child in this photo they would say superman was a hero, and we really wouldn't be able to persuade him otherwise.

Redefine the Impossible

"A monumental part of me being here was the Costa Rica trip," I smile as Ms. Lopaz, or Lopaz as I call her, states this with alacrity, "All these people told me it was too expensive, that we didn’t have enough time to fundraise money for all the kids, and that I was in over my head, and I just kept thinking 'I can do it.' No one had used the word impossible.”

"Talking about Costa Rica, what made you want to do the trip?" I ask as she clicks around on her sleek silver computer, her brown bangs falling in her eyes, which she brushed away in an attempt to titivate herself. The small cluttered office around us is full of the same warmth and love as any person's home.

"I love traveling and I wanted to do it with students because it hadn’t really been done,” I smiled as one word, determination, came into mind, “I'm competitive so as people were saying I couldn’t do it, I was all 'well yeah, I think I can do it.' It just felt like such a unique opportunity and authentic place for learning. The students could learn about nature, the environment and currency without having to sit in a classroom all day." Not only could I hear the determination in her voice now, I could also see it on her face. It was the same face she bore at the first meeting for the trip. Both of us were extremely competitive and loved the look on peoples’ faces when we completely blew them away, when we accomplished something they defined as “impossible”.

"How did you feel when you realized we were actually going to Costa Rica?" I say, trying not to be loquacious when I asked the question as my mind came up with more.

"I felt that feeling of 'I can’t believe this'. We spent so much time figuring out all the ways to fundraise so we could go that I didn’t take enough time to realize what a great experience we were going to have there,” I nodded in agreement. It's strange how when we were fundraising for Costa Rica I never once said to myself 'what if this doesn't happen?' There was no 'what if'. There was no 'isn't going to happen'. There were only the words “Costa Rica” implanted in my mind. But sitting here with Lopaz I realized how many things I had overlooked. But maybe, that was for the better. Maybe without all the 'what ifs' and 'isn't going to happens' I wouldn't have worked nearly as hard. It was because of her and Ms. Weisberg’s blatant display of faith in us that we got to go. Suddenly Lopaz passes me a sheet of paper, the movement of her arms moving towards me dragging me out of my thoughts and into reality.

"It's about a moment in Costa Rica," she states as the passes into my hands, still warm, a chocolate chip cookie hot out of the oven that I couldn’t wait to have fill me up.

"In over our heads," the title blares out. Silently I read, laughing to myself as I remember the crazy bus driver who drove through the river when the bridge was shut down and the noisy discussion of the latest scuttlebutt being overruled by piercing screams as we wobbled in the white water, our faces as white as a group of ghosts, but the memories became fugacious when my eyes reached the last paragraph:

As I think back to the interview on that bus, and the number of times Amy used the word “overwhelmed.” Looking back, I think that perhaps Amy and I were in over our heads. But then I remember the giant smiles plastered across our students’ faces as they finished their last zip line, and I wonder if we would have had it any other way.

Overwhelmed, I mouth as I finish. The single word made me realize how much she and "Amy" (Ms. Weisberg) had done for us students. Ms. Lopaz once told me that her goal as a Director was to ensure that students love school, and she had really made that true for me. She truly had redefined the impossible and started my initial drive.

The Meaning of Zero

I thought the articles were very interesting when they were talking about the number zero's origin. They both talked about the cultures creations of placeholders such as zero, but detailed that the exact origin of zero has not been pinpointed.

To me zero was not necessarily discovered by any one person. This is because the exact origin of zero cannot be pin pointed, and if a civilization was developed enough to have quantities larger than 99 or even occasionally 10, they would in fact need a number or place holder such as zero. Regardless, a person came up with the concept of zero, but we do not know who or where the original founder came from. For instance, the Chinese would use a symbol similar to the modern day 0 (zero) and the Romans had roman numerals such as X and C which represent the numbers 10 and 100. So, even though the Romans or Chinese were not necessarily using zero how we use it today, as a number, they were using a placeholder of sorts to represent it, and so were many other civilizations and cultures around the world.

Because of things like the Silk Roads, a major point of evolution in history, not only were things such as languages developed and dialects brought to other places as well as religious ideas and mechanisms, so was the idea of Zero.

While we may, as people of the world, have different ways for communication, different languages, and different government ideals, math cannot change per country. Math is the same everywhere, regardless of which symbols we use in place of numbers. Because of this, the world had to eventually come up with a common number for zero, or at least a way to define it. No matter where you go, formulas, operations, and expressions will be the same. Zero is the same way, even if it is represented differently the meaning is the same around the world, and without it things could not be computed which is why all cultures have had to accept it as a number.

Literary Devices

Beneath the Willow Tree

Catching the signal from one of her friends, Angela brushed her skirt, took a deep breath and walked towards where he was sitting. Her feet dragged along the pavement, her mouth practicing the words she was going to say to him over and over again.

“Hey Will, How’re you doing? I was just wondering if you would like to……” the words trailed off midsentence as she watched him close his book, stuff it casually into his bag, and walk away from her. She watched him walk away, standing still on the sidewalk, her mouth agape, before she turned around and walked back to where her best friend was sitting next to the old tree.

“I can’t believe I was that close to asking him,” she murmured, sliding down the old willow tree trunk and collapsing into its shadow.

“Maybe you’ll get another chance tomorrow, it’s not like he’s moving away tonight anyways. No one ever leaves Spokane. Plus you’ve waited for two years already. You can wait a little bit longer,” her best friend, Lily, said, thinking this would help bring her mood up when really all it did was bring back the fear of rejection into Angela’s mind.

“Thanks,” Angela states sarcastically.

“No problem. Hey, I’m gonna hit the music store after school, heard they got the new Kills album in. You wanna go? We can go rent movies afterwards, order pizza, and have a major calorie fest at my place. The rents are out of town so the house is pretty lonely, but they love you and I’m sure they wouldn’t mind you sleeping over.”

“Okay. I could really use a good slice of pizza right now.”

“Good. Pizza is like a gift from God that we can’t refuse. I’m Jesus, I would know.”

“Uh huh,” Angela nods, looking up at the tree. She had always loved the old willow tree in front of the mall. It’s drooping branches and old rippled trunk was like an old mans saggy skin. It showed wisdom in life. She pressed her forehead to the tree, trying to get some of the old trees wisdom to pass into her. It was a psychologist to her in her times of need. Slowly she slid up the trunk, waiting for Lily to realize she was ready to leave. However, Lily being Lily, it took several notifications. A slap on the shoulder, a whistle from her mouth, and a few calls of “Lily” later her friend had risen from the brown earth and was ready to leave. They began to walk away, and before turning at the corner, Angela looked back upon the tree which was dancing to the beat of the wind.