Goodbye, WISE 2015

Just like everything else in senior year, WISE must come to an end. And just like everything else, its ending is surrounded by a mixture of emotions.

I am relieved. I've made it through my WISE project, my AP final projects and all the other stress of senior year. 

I am unresolved. Up until now, my project felt never ending, like 10 years from now I would still be sitting at my computer, researching survival. And I'd like to think that someday I will delve back into survival, and go on some bad-ass adventures. (I definitely won't be blogging about it though, that's the one thing I won't miss).

I am excited. To show what I've done during my WISE presentation, to graduate and to start the next chapter of my life. 

I am satisfied. With what I have accomplished for my WISE project and with every other aspect of high school.

I am sad. To say good bye, to leave behind this chapter of my life. 

Goodbye, WISE and Goodbye, IHS

Presentation Thoughts

Now that we've got our location set in stone, it's time to think more about the logistics and details of our presentation. Personally, I think there should be three different components.

1. Skills- During this part we will build a fire and demonstrate how we cooked most of our food in the woods. We will give samples to our audience. 
2. Documentary- The documentary is kind of a hidden, yet extremely important part of our project. In order to give it the attention it deserves, we will hopefully be able to show spinets of it. The only problem with this is figuring out how to do so since we will be outside. My problem solving idea for this is to set up a projector inside the pavilion, where it should be dark enough to see. There is electricity there so that shouldn't be a problem, We just need to see where we can get a projector and what we will project it on... Time to do some research!
3. Project Talk- During this portion, we will do much of the typical "what we did to prepare" and "how we've grown over the course of the project" type of stuff. We will definitely delve into our stays and talk about the challenges we overcame. 

Hopefully this Saturday Ellie and I are going to go to the Ellis Hollow Community Center and get our bearings. This will help give us an idea of what we need to do to prepare and hopefully solve some of our unanswered questions. 

Presentation Location!!

For a while now, I have known that I didn't want to have the typical classroom setting presentation for my project. Since my project is so outdoorsy and hands on, I thought it should be outside so that we could showcase some of the skills that we learned. In particular, we thought it would be interesting to build a fire, since this was such a crucial part of our survival stays. The problem surrounding this idea was that there are very few places that permit open fire, not too far from downtown and that are accessible. The best place I thought of was the Ellis Hollow Community Center, located about 10 minutes from downtown in Ellis Hollow.

On Wednesday I emailed the Ellis Hollow Community Center board describing our project and asking permission to use their grounds for our presentation. They got back to me today and were extremely kind in reserving the grounds for us on this day after 12:00PM. This will give us more than enough time to set up for our ~3:00PM Presentation. I am SO happy to finally have our location figured out, so much stress has been taken off my shoulders. 

April's WISE Presentation

Today my friend April gave the sample WISE presentation on her TV show, "Living with White Rice." I thought her presentation was absolutely phenomenal and it showcased all of the hard work she has put in over the last few months. I thought that the way she presented her work, in a timeline of sorts, was well fit to her project. To write and produce a screenplay requires so many different steps, which I think constitutes it as a journey. The first thing that comes to my mind when documenting a journey is a timeline, so I liked this aspect of her presentation a lot. 

Although I thought her chronological presentation was fantastic for her project, I definitely don't think that it would work well for every project. I considered it for mine, for example, and I think it would be terribly boring. I think for my project, I am going to spend much less time talking about what went into the project, like April did, and more of what I got out of the project. I think our hands on fire building component will definitely achieve this. 

All in all, I think April's presentation made me realize how different mine is going to be. She has set the bar high in several respects, and I honestly doubt that my project will be quite as clean as hers. Despite this, to me the most important aspect of my project is making it my own. I'm excited!.. And terrified.

'Uses of Stones'

Last night I continued reading from "Stones: Their Collection, Identification and Uses," by R.V. Dietrich. And although it was quite boring, I managed to skim through the entire 'Uses of Stones' section.

• Weights- More commonly used in the past as weights, but also used in modern day situations for on-the-spot temporary needs, or to satisfy aesthetic desire.
• Sports- Hopscotch, bocce, curling, tests of strength,
• Health (both in form of mineral and stone)- smooth stones are collected and sold as tranquilizers for "thumb therapy" 
• Rituals
• Tools and Construction

I'll be completely honest, this book bores me 100% of the time. When I first saw it on the bookshelf I thought "I had no idea there was enough interesting stuff to write a book about the collection, identification and uses of stones, cool!" Now, after reading (mostly skimming) half of it, I realize that there really is not. The main ideas of this section of the book I easily could have inferred on my own, and the supporting details just aren't that interesting. I think I am official giving up on reading this, and will now focus on my field guide more.

Summer

Earlier, Ellie and I were talking about how sad we are that our project is coming to an end. I feel that over the course of the project we have grown closer as friends, which after all these years means a lot to me. We were also discussing the possibility of continuing our project in a low key way over the summer. Possibly going back to the Adirondacks and camping, or going on an adventure in some new place. My dream is to walk part of the Appalachian trail, and I hope to do that for a week or so this summer, if I have the means to do so. I am excited thinking about all of the possibilities for future trips!

Mentor Meeting 5/18

Today I met with Mr. Morales to discuss my survival trip to the Adirondacks. I showed him some of the footage we got and talked about the things that went well or poorly. We then discussed what I am going to do for the next weeks in order to further my project and prepare for the presentation. The main things we decided I should do is:

-Organize a visit to a local girl scout troop to build a fire and teach fire safety

-Further macro & micro information, in particular, plant identification

-Find a location for our presentation