Annabel: I'm Back!

Friend walks up to a girl while she is studying on the couch.  The Friend puts a stapled pile of papers in front of her and asks, “Annabel, did you print this out?”

(The view at right is the cover page) Annabel studies the page for a bit.  She stares at her Friend and says, “Yes. Thank you.”

The Friend is about to leave, and then they ask another question, “What are you studying, or what is it about? I skimmed through and found a couple of edits and errors within your piece.  I did not understand one thing about what it said.”

“It's cool.  I am still editing the essay.  Currently it's in the planning stages.  The essay that I'm writing will be on symbolism.”

“Ok then.  Can you be more descriptive?”

Annabel takes a long sigh and then speaks, “I am writing an essay about symbols for the Edge blog.  You know that right?”

The Friend nods their head.  Annabel continues, “As you know I am a senior preparing for college.  So, since I am not the strongest with completing tasks, I thought of writing an essay, having no idea how long it will be and then posting it.  I will be reading two books for the essay in the meanwhile.”

The Friend says, “Oh is that what's on your lap?  The book, what is it called?”

Annabel says, “Yes, this book is The Man and His Symbols, by Carl Jung.  I have only read a little bit, but I really like it.  I don't have the other book I am reading with me, but it will be The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown.”

“Cool.  Is that what you mainly do on your laptop? Is it research?”

“Yes and no.”

“What do you mean?”

Annabel glares, annoyed and suspicious, at the Friend, “What's your name again?  It doesn't make sense that you're just standing here for...how long? 20 minutes?”

The Friend says, “One:  it is sad that you cannot recognize me, but I am keeping myself anonymous.  This is because my work will come later.  Anyway, besides researching, what else?”

“Besides school work for Kildonan, I listen to music, watch short videos on YouTube to regain my sanity, research for the essay, and play around on Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.  Sometimes I just get bored of all of that, and I write.”

“Oh, cool.  Want to talk about something else?”

“Sure.”

“Are you staying for once this weekend?”

“I'm sorry.  I'm not.”

The Friend crosses their arms and cocks their head, “Why not?”

“I thought I told you.  I have a class on the weekend in the city at FIT?”

“Oh, right.  I forgot.  Sorry about that.  What classes are you taking again?”

“It's fine.  I'm taking two classes in the city.  My first one is an introduction to Adobe Illustrator.  The second one is a styling class.”

“OK."

A voice comes from the peanut gallery and says, “Hey, Annabel we need to go to our next class.”

Annabel starts to pack up her stuff in her nice black backpack.  She says, “See ya next time, Friend-whose-name-I've-forgotten.  I need to go to my Social Problems class.  You can ask me more about it at dinner.”

Here's Maddie!

The stages of development after birth.
Image located by Maddie.

Over the course of Quarter 1 I learned about how children develop and how premature children develop. I started out with the broad topic of Medical Science. Then I went on to pick 3 topics I wanted to look at. That was child development and premature babies, mental health, and cancer. I then picked one of those topics to study.

I was 5 weeks premature. I was born at 3:23pm on March 31, 2000. I was 5 pounds and 18 inches long. I had a heart defect that was fixed at 18 months. That is why I wanted to pick this topic. I am doing a project in another class on school systems, and I am planning on tying the two together. Being Dyslexic, development in school is also something I relate to.

Mental development.
Image located by Maddie.

James: Engineering

Blackwater Creek Koi Farms in Eustis, FL.

Image taken by Mr. Pendergast.

Hello readers,

My name is James. This is my first year in Edge, and I'm hoping to accomplish a lot. There are a few topics that I am extremely interested in:  engineering, construction, and design. I'm trying to keep it in touch with engineering mainly. I’ve always liked the idea of group projects, so some of the contraptions that I may make throughout the year will hopefully help others within the community.

So far this year I’ve done a lot of research on Koi ponds and the fish with Ian (we are basically spearheading the project). In doing so we’ve done a lot of presenting to our school's Admin and to the whole school on Parents’ Day. The project relies on donations, so we asked for help from the community and came up with the idea to auction off the fish during the Fall Ball. In total we’ve raised over $1550. That is much more than we were expecting.  The money will allow us to get better equipment and materials. We can also expand the pond's size.

Breeding barrels at Blackwater.

Image taken by James.

As we look forward in the year, I'd like to do several projects, including building a snow-gun to help Ben with his project and (hypothetically, at least) redesigning the NYC subway. There are many things wrong with the subway and NYC’s infrastructure. From bridges to tunnels, there are a lot of problems. I have been consumed by research about them. Let's take a lot at NYC’s transit:

Map of the NYC subway system.

Image located at nextcity.org.

How many people have taken the subway? Many of you, I'm sure. What if I told you that the system could be nice, instead of grimy, cold, dark and dirty? What if we could start over and reinvent it so that it could be nice and reliable? The bridges and tunnels also need some work. Can anyone think of a traffic jam or a closed tunnel? I sure can, and I don’t even live in NYC. Wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to deal with the chaos? What I want to do is redesign everything, but before this I need to learn some more trade skills (and get some short-term internship with an outside builder). The best way that I learn is with hands-on experience, so I am looking for some type of off-campus learning and to establish a relationship with future job partners.

This year is going to be great!

- James