Pitch Perfect

This is the very last action project of my senior year here at GCE Lab School. Our Social Entrepreneurship class has been so important to me, especially before college. Business is not easy. Entrepreneurship is not easy. This project has definitely helped me find myself and what I want to do. This is our one and only project for this course, but for good reason. Throughout this course, we had heavy preparation for this project. We actually had mass amounts of time to develop and carry out an idea for a business. I love music, as you guys might know. I am pitching an idea to Soundcloud to allow artists to collaborate easier. My knowledge of the world and myself has expanded in this course. I know more than I ever did about what businesses do, why they do it, and how they do it. This project was extremely cool and I was very interested and passionate about it. I think my logo is pretty cool, and I wanted to make sure you all understand how important it is for people to come together.

No Phone, No Problem

The second unit of my Endurance course, Katabasis was all about the trials & tribulations of our figurative hero. In this project, we are that hero. We must "endure" something for 12 hours and log our experiences. The significance of this 12 hours is for you to determine. You can go on a twelve-hour hike, play video games, or even build a mini shed aquarium. The idea of this project is to achieve the mission that you set out in the first unit. Or at least get one step closer. I chose to simply not use my phone for 12 hours. I decided that I could become a better artist if I just became one with the art. No distractions. No phone calls, text messages, or games. During this project, I think I found out that writing music kind of hinders my creativity. There's something about writing music instead of typing it for me. Typing is always more ideal for me. The distractions hinder my creativity as well, though, so I guess I have to pick my poison. This project was intensive, but it was really fun and interesting!

Doctor To Patient

In the third unit of Cure, we discussed nutrition and diets, and how we can prevent out bodies from catching certain illnesses. We ultimately surrounded our unit around the question of, "How do we prevent, so cure is unnecessary?" Instead of revolving our discussions around how we get rid of certain illnesses or how we suppress the effects of certain illnesses, we instead, discussed how to take precautions to prevent those illnesses from even corrupting us in the first place. This Action Project is a video of dialogue between a doctor and his patient about how the patient can stay away from getting a certain illness. I chose to get a little creative, and made a slideshow hybrid for your enjoyment. I chose Diabetes as the illness for me to research. This was quite fun, I became really fond of editing videos, even though it's time-consuming!

Is Reality Really Real (IRRR)?

In the first unit of my class Forbidden Books, we discussed how we can use our inspiration from Socrates to create our own definition of life in general. We also discussed why the media may not have liked published books in the past and present. Socrates was a very famous philosopher and teacher who taught people to believe in what they believe in and to know that they know nothing. When he says, "all you know is that you know nothing," he means that if you admit that you know nothing, you will only then be open to obtaining knowledge. This is when I started to wrap my head around the real definition of the Socratic method of dialogue. I have come to the conclusion that the Socratic method consists of using wits to pierce others' arguments. I chose to analyze my own problem using the Socratic method. I chose to speak on the subject of, "what is reality?" I've always been interested in defining life and how we came to be! Writing my script was challenging but more importantly, I learned to investigate and not to let the original answer be the last answer for you.

Script Below:
DR: Hello Ra, to what do I owe this pleasure?

VG: I’ve just been in Rivea lately and decided to come find you.

DR: I’m happy you did. I’ve been asking the same question to different people for over a year now. There’s this thing about the definition of Reality. I’ve been trying to find out what people around Rivea thought about my topic.

VG: Everyone knows that reality is just what’s real.

DR: Ok, if reality is what’s real, then what is real? Because, is the definition of real the same as the definition of reality? Tell me more.

VG: Well, what I meant was that real is the base of the word reality and by that being true, then they have to be similar, correct?

DR: I agree. Definitely, they are similar but as in Geometry, they are not congruent which is closest to your statement of them being the “same”. Do you understand what I’m saying? Saying something is real doesn’t help me understand reality.

VG: I kind of have an idea of what you are talking about. Your comparison to mathematics is interesting, although the definition of similar is “resembling without being identical,” resemble means “to seem like” and my intentions of saying “same” is because it “seems like” the word reality has the same intentions as the word real.

DR: Very interesting indeed. Let me ask a question if you don’t mind. Do you believe in imagination and hallucination?

VG: Of course, what would life be without it? Everything had to be created or thought of. Imagination is just that, isn’t it?

DR: It is. But my thing about all this is that, what do we ACTUALLY know about reality? Is anything “real” or is reality even a thing? How do we know we are living? We are living a life destined by someone else. We can’t create our own destiny because everything is meant to be. Everything came from something, like you just said, I believe our origins are yet to be known because none of our knowledge can really be proven due to the fact that we don’t exactly have a clue about what reality is.

VG: Hm, so you’re saying that it’s possible for our knowledge of reality, and way of living could all be wrong? I guess I never thought of it that way.

DR: I have only recently had this epiphany, assuming you know that an epiphany is a realization. It just came to me. How do we know the truth when we weren’t there to notice it ourselves, so our meaning of reality is just an imagination of what our elders “think”.

VG: Wow Deshius, I leave tomorrow and I will surely take this knowledge along with me.

DR: I hope you do, wonderful seeing you again.

Service Begins At Home: Service Project

For the last project in my Five Faces class we all had to complete our own service project following certain requirements. It was kind of hard to make the service convenient for me, let alone following requirements along the way, but I pulled through and delivered a nice video. This service project was a lot different than most. Lots of people wouldn't even consider this a service, but this was service in my eyes. If you're using your own blood, sweat, tears, and money then it's definitely service!! I cooked for my great grandmother and it made me feel AMAZING. I cooked things that she would usually cook to make her feel at home! She invited people over and so did I and it was all a success. It was truly a magnificent experience. As you will find in my video, she even shed a tear. That's the very first time I've ever seen her cry, it was really something special. Tears of joy are the strongest liquid to me.

Using my Seer face, I visualized my success before my service occurred:

"Before" DNR Jan 9

"During" DNR Jan 9

"Post" DNR Jan 9

Using my Observer face, I detailed my project to perfection! I made a table to help me organize what I needed and what I had to do to make this service successful. I needed to buy the food, I needed 10 guests, and I needed seasonings and silverware. The cooking took roughly 2 hours. The meat and potatoes took up most the time. We also had salad, bread sticks, broccoli, and macaroni. 

Thanks to the Alchemist face, I used my love for Pineapple Pop and Orange Juice to mix them together and serve at dinner. I also used my great grandmother always making us nice meals as inspiration for my service.

Using my Fool face, I flipped the script and cooked for my great grandmother as she is always cooking for me!

By taking advantage of the Sage face, I made everything traditional and simple. I had everything laid out and detailed. I also utilized simplicity and created a crafty title that summed up my project: "Service Begins At Home: Service Project".

Becca and Deshawn's Review on Fruitvale Station!!

In this term, the second unit, "Production," made me and my peers understand what it takes to create a presentable screening of a movie or play. We discussed actor's performance, lighting, camera angles, and what the producer envisions. Throughout this unit, I have broken down the actual excellence of actors and how good they are. I now have a better understanding of how to analyze the performance of some of my favorite actors and see how excellent they actually are. I didn't have that much of a hard time putting together this assignment, it was really fun and the film was excellent. Check out my video review of Fruitvale Station below!