The battle of the bridge.

In this story, we have the main character, me, a spider monkey, my guitar, and the bridge. Now, this is a little weird, but it has all the necessary aspects of a fable. A fable is a story conveying a moral with animals as the characters. Often times the animals show human characteristics. We had a professional storyteller come in and tell us about her experiences, plus some stories.






Full version:

Once upon a time, a teenage guitarist named NO went to a guitar center with his dad and about 75 dollars to spend on accessories for his brand new guitar. So, he bought a cable, a nice strap, some picks, and as they were checking out, he saw something on the shelf that made his heart drop. The infamous 8 gauge strings. They were so special because they had so much less resistance when playing, it made it much easier for him. He had 10 dollars left in his budget, so he ran over and picked them up. He was overjoyed at his find!




His father asked “What are you going to do with those?”

NO said, “I'll put them on my new guitar.”

NO’s father laughed, and said, “Good luck with that! It'll take you forever to do that!”

He didn’t have opposable thumbs, therefore it made this task even more difficult.

NO felt defeated, as he knew it'd be a struggle to change the strings on his guitar as a spider monkey, he did not have opposable thumbs. In addition, the guitar itself had a certain feature that made it particularly difficult to restring.



It had… A FLOATING BRIDGE!!



This means that the bridge is held in place by a set of springs inside the guitar, as well as the strings themselves. This meant NO had to balance them so the bridge was flush with the body, otherwise everything would be off. What made this even more difficult, was the fact that he had a lighter gauge string set, which meant less resistance on the bridge, so it was off put a bit. AND, he would also have to tune it after calibrating the bridge, which would offset it further. It's a tedious process and one not for the faint of heart.




But NO put this task off. Finally, at 2am one night he decided he had enough. He was going to do it. This villainous bridge was no match for his awesomeness. He cut the first string off, unlocked the tuning peg, and unwound the string. He then loosened the nut on the bridge and replaced the string with the new one. NO then tightened the locking nut and proceeded to do the rest of the strings. This took thirty minutes on its own. Afterward, he looked at the bridge.

Wholly cow! It was way up in the air!

He then tightened the springs on the inside of the guitar. Now, it was flush. “Perfect!” NO said.




He then strummed the guitar once. Oh. he forgot. It was insanely out of tune now. This hurt his pride a little, his confidence in succeeding now damaged. He wasn't giving up though. He unlocked the tuners, and tuned it, loosened, tightened, took springs, added springs, adjusted, locked, unlocked, and finally, he had done it. It was not only perfectly in tune, but also perfectly balanced. NO was nearly shaking with his triumph over the bridge. He knew he would have to tune it in the morning as the new strings would stretch out a little, but that was no biggie. He showed everyone, and of course, nobody really cared, but he was happy. He had defeated the bridge and now played his newly string guitar happily. The end.




The moral: hard work never goes unrewarded.

A fish you’ve definitely never heard of.

the story of a brother.

this is the story of 4 brothers. we had to add adverbs, similes, and other grammatical terms. 

Once, there was a man and his three brothers. They lived in a small village in northern Canada where the wilderness was brief and unforgiving, yet beautiful and mysterious. They eventually set off from their calm,  Village to create a new civilization and form one new society. They set off from their home into the wild and were eventually taken into the unknown by curiosity. They found the perfect space after just four days. These brothers had decided to settle in the young looking valley. On the left was a mountain range, in front was a meadow, to the right was a large, sparkling river, and behind was a friendly hill. They decided to make one main cabin for the time being. As they were creating their cabin, one man decided to look around himself and suddenly realized what was around him. Trees, rivers, mountains, wildlife, birds, all these things made up in nature, and he would certainly use them to his advantage. As he looked around himself he realized that it wasn’t really about what they were doing now, rather how that one little cabin would become an entire civilization and many memories full of emotion and passion will be made simply because they chose to start their own little town there. Then that given the thought that people always say they wish they could time travel back to when everything was good right now world and change things so it stay that way. And then he thought why not make those changes before they become necessary. 

He then went back to his brothers and told them his thoughts. They all then contemplated for hours and hours till the sun rose and continued working. Every day. They soon became less attached to the real world they became more spiritual and physical, rather than blood forced into the veins energy of life from existence replaced it. 

Everything that led up to this point in time simply because they made a choice, thousands of actions were taken from one original cause. They essentially broke the algorithm of endurance. They had done the impossible, they had created a space that existed before it needed to. They became less human and more mentally enlightened. They didn’t need to use their words anymore since they spent enough time with each other and understood what they’re saying without uttering a sound.  They all realized it’s not the scars that show the true depth of one's past, it’s the story of what happened. This was the origin of the brotherhood. And the trust in people is so strong you understand them completely.

 

classroom design ap

this ap is about designing a classroom for our specific needs. were designing it to be as optimal as possible. so far we're working on figuring out what kind of classroom necessary objects we need and don't need. like tables, chairs, whiteboards, etc. 

(me, gce lab school, 2021)

this is what we wanted our classroom to look like. not very complex yet well thought out. We have more chairs than necessary because usually there would be more people in this classroom. the teacher has to learn with the students, as the learning isn't just for the students. teachers know a lot, but the students do as well. for a student at gce, all you need to do is come on time, learn, and allow the opportunity for correction or improvement. the best way to learn here Is to have an open mind and always be willing to learn from every opportunity. 

(gce lab school, AJA, 2021)

here is a picture of what the layout is exactly.

a classroom is anywhere ha learning happens. it can really be anywhere. since the early classroom days, they have always been everywhere. outside, and inside different areas of the world. in all, gce has a  very open attitude about it. not to say its lazy or disorganized, but its not the typical school. and that's how we like it here.

observations on invisible information. NO, 2021.

 I learned a little bit about synth music and how you can do so much with it. I connected by knowing a little about synths and different kinds. but I now know more about it since I experienced it at the park. I discovered that the artist uses Roland synths, she usually uses digital but this time she used analog. the way she was going from one side of the park to the other with the sound was interesting, and the harmonization of each note then morphing into another sound to further the progression of the piece was also an interesting feat of the experience. i found the specific synth she used as well. 

 

(roland.com,2021, roland juno-60)

this is a roland juno-60. im fairly sure this is the one of the synths that were used to create the piece based on this image below.

(natalie chami,  https://hausumountain.com/?page_id=2108, 2015)

since she had used analog synths for this piece, (she usually doesn't) i figured this was the kind of synth being used. i found this interesting because now i could see what kind of things were being used to create such interesting soundscapes. 

gmos, good or bad? well, both.

 

My position on gmos. I think they’re great. Not in all cases, but in most. They are helping solve world hunger faster than ever before. But, they have side effects. Like superweeds, and less nutritional value. But, I have to say that now that we have a solution, why critique it while it’s still new? Let it thrive, and then work on the side effects. Since norman borlogs invention of genetically modifying plants, we have seen an exponential incline in crop yield, this means that we have more supplies than demand could ever need. Yet, our diets have come to revolve around the main crops, corn, soy, and wheat. This makes us undernourished. But, we see places like whole foods making a positive impact in the food deserts of America. We will continue to work on decreasing the number of food deserts in America and making world hunger a smalled issue than it is today.

Here is a graph showing the incline in crop yield from India from 1960-2019, and you can see the incline as normans idea hit India and boosted their crop yield.

Other GMO foods, such as vitamin A-enriched Golden Rice, have been fortified with vitamins and minerals to create healthier staple foods and help prevent malnutrition.

 “The GMO Debate.” Alliance for Science, allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2018/08/the-gmo-debate/#:~:text=In%20summary%2C%20GMO%20crops%20can,promote%20and%20reduce%20chemical%20use. 

chicken? or... not?

 intro

This is my Action project for the ‘Food For Thought” class unit 3. For this project, I was assigned to recreate a dish at a restaurant I enjoy at home. I originally chose to recreate the fried chicken rice from a restaurant called phodega. unfortunately, i wasn't able to and instead chose a restaurant called honey butter fried chicken. Once we had finished recreating it we would taste both of them and either film a video or write an essay on the two dishes. I decided to do an essay on my ingredients, to show weather or not my dish was better than the restaurants, and if organic is better.

I have created an interesting and exciting new dish for my household. Now, what comes to mind when you hear “fried chicken”? A nice, golden brown sliver of meat, breaded with herbs and spices, batter and simmered in oil for a few minutes, then put on a paper towel to dry, right? Well, that’s what I made. But, I did it better. The restaurant couldn’t even compete. I first took the pre-cut slivers of chicken and marinated them in buttermilk for thirty minutes before mixing them, and laying them out on a pan of hot oil. After I completed the chicken, I ordered honey butter fried chicken, I got chicken strips and compared them with the chicken I made. 

First things first, we took all the herbs and spices we needed and mixed them in a bowl. This was going to make them taste better. I put smoked paprika, a marron spice that tastes almost fruity and bright, contouring the chicken to be almost like springtime. Then there is the salt. Now, salt gives it that savory taste, making the chicken more enjoyable. The black pepper itself doesn't add much flavor, but it brings out the spice in the other ingredients, so it is essential to the recipe. Onion powder is similar, but it gives the chicken some earthy flavor. Poultry seasoning gives aspects to the chicken, specifically for chicken, I think it's like adding sprinkles to a cupcake. The flour is for battering the chicken, making it fry well. 

The appearance of each chicken, the chicken I made, and the chicken I ordered from honey butter fried chicken. The chicken I made, had a fiery red color to it. But the chicken I ordered was nearly the same color as the box it came in. I noticed this and I thought it apply to the taste, but I was wrong. It didn’t taste bad at all. Although the one we made was much higher quality. This relates to Michael pollan's five food transformations, quantity over quality. Since we have hit this time in agriculture since we started genetically modifying products. Though, just because it tastes better, doesn’t mean it’s nutritionally better.

 “Took pains to return nutrients to the local soil on which they depended, "our modern civilization returns exceedingly little of what it borrows. Vast fleets are busy carrying the limited minerals offar-flungg districts to distant markets." Renner documents how Christ eventually came to see the problem of diet and health as a problem of ecological dysfunction. By breaking the links among soil's, local foods, and local people's, the industrial food system disrupts the circular flow of the new industrial system, it could no longer meet the biochemical requirements of the human body , which, not having had time to adapt,  was failing in new ways.” POLLAN, Michael (2009). In Defense of Food. New York: Penguin Press.

Ingredients 

• 4-6 Pcs Boneless Skinless Chicken Breasts

• 1 1/2 c All-Purpose Flour

• 1 tsp Salt

• 1/2 tsp Black Pepper

• 1/4 tsp Onion Powder

• 1/2 tsp smoked Paprika

• 1/2 tsp dried thyme

• 1/8 tsp Poultry Seasoning

• 3-4 dashes of Hot Sauce (like Texas Pete)

• 1 c Buttermilk

• Cooking Oil - enough for frying (about 1/2 " in a large skillet)

 

Instructions

1. Combine hot sauce and buttermilk and add chicken to marinate for 30 minutes.

2. In a separate bowl combine flour and seasonings and herbs.

3. Heat the cooking oil over medium until heated.

4. Take each chicken breasts from the buttermilk marinade and dredge in the flour mixture and add to the skillet.

5. Fry on each side turning every 3 minutes until cooked, cooking time is 12-15 minutes depending on the thickness of the chicken.

6. Transfer cooked chicken from skillet to a paper towel-lined plate to remove excess cooking oil before serving.