Week 26

Overall this past week has been very interesting, what with all that crazy snow we got last weekend and then a sudden family trip to west virginia this week for a funeral. Im now facing two days of makeup work consisting chiefly of tests i need to make up. Overall in cs2 this past week we did a lot of work on our wordpress sites. As of the moment im not entirely sure if im doing it right?, but i got a slideshow working and added some widgets. Im using the nirvana theme which is really colorful and has a really nice slideshow on the home page. It also has a 'read more' button on the slideshow pictures that will take you to the article which is really convenient. I added a calendar on the right hand side and a search bar on the top right of the homepage, i still have to add the search bar to the several tabs i created. I decided to go with a travel theme and put in pictures of different destinations in my slideshow. Overall the site theme is easy to use and there are a lot of support forums and advice online. 

     Challenges faced this past week would include the crazy snow storm that i had to drive through on saturday which was incredibly scary and fun at the same time. The other challenge was working on my wordpress site. I had trouble getting the plugins to showup and changing the size of the pictures in the slideshow.

     Successes would include a safe trip to and from west virginia. Another success was getting the wordpress slideshow to work since at first the slideshow wouldnt automatically switch slides unless it was clicked on. I also had success when i figured how to change the color scheme settings on the site and how to change specific buttons colors and fonts.

     My plans for the upcoming week are to get caught up on school work and get all my makeup tests out of the way. Im also planning to work on 20 time this weekend. Next week im going to try and figure out the plugins thing on wordpress and how exactly that all works.

20 time progress

     My 20 time project has been coming along very well. So far I have been focusing on PLN. My PLN progress so far has been pretty good. I tried to contact 15 or so people, and 3 got back to me. Their answers were really interesting. I asked them to tell about their craziest adventure, some of the answers were really bizarre. I am slowly beginning to gain a feel for the big picture. During my presentation I'm planning to present several travel bloggers websites and show how they designed their sites to attract more viewers and followers. One of my main goals is to try to explain how exactly you get into a career like that and how you make a living at it. 

     At the moment I have been having trouble with making the presentation itself. I'm undecided on how to show the websites and make a slideshow or explain everything....still working on how I'm going to get it to all flow.

     Overall I feel like this project is going to be very interesting and educational.

Break

     Overall my break was pretty relaxing. I really enjoyed the time with my family. Most of the time I spent with friends was during the D term week where I literally found my self being drug all over creation to complete bucket list challenges and go last minute Christmas shopping since I literally had like no presents for my friends or family yet... Once break started though I got to relax a lot. I ended up only going Christmas shopping once during break with Alet which was an interesting experience what with all those crazy Christmas drivers:P 

     Christmas with my family was a lot of fun:) we went to a friend of ours on Christmas Eve and hung out with them a little. After Christmas was over me, my mom, brother, sister and my sister's dog all piled into one car and drove 3 hours to my grandmas. :P Later I ended up going shopping with my sister which for those of you who don't know her, is torture... I like shopping but not for six hours straight:P that was exhausting. Later that day though I got to hang out with my aunt, uncle and cousins and I spent the night at their house.

     The last highlight of my break was going ice skating with my friends at the inner harbor in Baltimore:) it was a lot of fun and I think we all had a great time. Luckily I never fell which is a first since I'm terrible at skating. But after awhile of that we ended up just walking around Baltimore and looking at the ships:) 

     Overall break was a lot of fun. My goals for this upcoming year are to find the right college, find the right career and grow closer to God.

     20 time has been coming along slowly, I literally worked on nothing but a physics project over break so I have a lot of work still left to do. Im planning to get caught up on twenty time stuff after midterms since I have two projects due this week and midterms next week:P

20 time project

     My 20 time project is coming along quite well. I recently found a website that lists their top 50 travel bloggers and have been using that to find people to look at. I recently found a travel blog run by three people who go around the world reviewing skii resorts which is something I was definitely interested in since I've been skiing like my whole life. I also followed several more people on twitter and am looking forward to getting in contact with all of them. My plans for the upcoming week with this project are to begin laying out an outline for my presentation. I want to start putting together my keynote or explain everything presentation and figure out what information I still need and what I have enough of. I still have a lot more work to do in the long run but I think my project is coming along well. Contrary to what I previously thought there are many different types of travel bloggers and travel sites dedicated to many different purposes. Depending on what kind of atmosphere you are looking for in a vacation spot you may be able to find a blogger with the same ideals who only visits places with that element. 

     As for the college websites, I am almost done everything. Yesterday I figured out how to embed a google earth tour video so now I have to do that for my two other sites. Overall I feel like this project went very well. I think my websites are almost good enough for presentation. The only thing I would need help with would be if maybe someone could scan over my sites and tell me if I missed anything important? I'm not entirely sure what we were supposed to with the pages, I just linked them to the page on the actual college site... Otherwise I think my websites are good to go.

     I commented on the Kara S blog. She is doing a project where she is fundraising with her friend to earn money to go on a missions trip to India. I also commented on Madeline T blog. She is doing a project where she is planning to go about and do random acts of kindness for everyone in her school. Lastly I commented on Halle M blog. She is doing a project where she is going to reach out and serve the Detroit community through community service, fundraisers and anything else she can do to help.

20 Time

     I think we can all agree that thanksgiving break was much needed. I definitely needed a break from school for a while, or in this case a couple days. So far in 20 time I have been focusing on finding all of the most popular travel bloggers. I have followed a few on twitter but some don't have accounts. However they all have well built websites so I would say that is essential to being a popular blogger. I've also been looking at their personal stories. Many of the bloggers have an "about me page" where they tell the story of how they became a travel blogger so I've read quite a few of those. This week I think I'm going to look into the physical and mental demands that this job requires. I also want to look into the writing style on their blogs and try to compare them to see what particularly made them successful. One of the bloggers I followed did a post on what the job really requires so I'm looking forward to reading that.

     PLN so far has been going well. I haven't contacted any of the bloggers yet but I'm planning to start next week. I'm still building up a list of all of them and I have followed several on twitter already. However I was surprised afterwards to realize random travel bloggers I hadn't even looked at began following me after that? Overall I would expect these travel bloggers to be more than willing to talk to me. After all their whole career revolves around self advertising and getting people to read their blogs and look at their websites. They need the recognition I'm going to give them.

     Overall I am starting to see some of the big picture... I think my main goal is to try and figure out if travel blogging is a realistic career to pursue. I don't think I've met a person yet who doesn't want to travel the world, that's what makes this project so attractive. Almost everyone can relate. Overall I think people need to be more aware of how close to your dreams you can get. Clearly it's hard to get started in this career, but in the end you literally get to have the experiences of a lifetime. I want to include the benefits of this career in my project and outline on average how many places these travel bloggers have been. 

     So far I have has trouble figuring out which travel bloggers are paid and which ones aren't. The thing with that is that they don't really work for anyone so it not like their specially certified. Some of them have the money and just travel because they can. I'm still working on figuring out who pays them and which ones get paid. The other thing I've had trouble with is finding the travel bloggers on twitter, some of them all work together on one website so it's hard to figure out who runs the site and who actually blogs. Still looking into this problem. 

     Overall I think I have a pretty good idea of what I want my project to be focused on. I think however its going to be majorly filled up with PLN responses because I feel like their opinions will aim more towards the questions I'm trying to answer.

Break is almost here...

     Thank goodness break is almost here! So last week was like freezing compared to the weather now... Gosh maryland weather. And now it's like 70° degrees outside yet were still expecting 3-6 inches of snow the day after tomorrow... How is that possible. Anyways last week I made a lot of progress on the college sites. I finally got my buttons to start working so you can actually see them. I also made a lot of progress on 20 time both this week and last week. I've been looking at a lot of travel blog sites and have found several successful and professional people to contact. They all seem to have the same story on their bios though, 'I was working a boring job and decided I wanted a better life so I quit my job and decided to travel the world'...I have a feeling there is more to the story than that. I've also been researching how often they get asked to visit a country free of charge in exchange for a positive blog post. It appears that they get a few of them but most of the places travel bloggers go are chosen by them, they are not asked to go there. Overall I want to specifically look in to seeing if there are any bloggers out there who go to 'off the beaten track' vacation spots. I think the best travel blog would entail descriptions of places that literally no one has ever heard of. No ones going to want to hear another review of Paris and the Eiffel Tower, because they either already know or have been there themselves.

     As for thanksgiving break, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one that feels its way to short. I mean a half day before the actual holiday? Most schools got out for the entire week...rant over. My plans for break are to babysit Wednesday. The family I babysit for has their family over so instead of babysitting 2 girls, I'm babysitting 3 girls and 2 twin boys...pray I survive:/ For thanksgiving, the plan is to drive up to my Grandparents on Thursday but with a 3 hour drive and the prospect of snow I'm not entirely sure that's going to happen. However if we do arrive safely the plan is to eat dinner at my uncles house with the whole family. 

     As for ODMs I signed up today but may switch my classes around, anyways I signed up for the human trafficking class with Mrs.Griffin, cake decorating class with Mrs.Barnesly, Creative writing, and Spanish cuisine with Mrs.Dayhoff. 

     Challenges faced this past week would include driving to the mall by myself for the first time. It was rough but I didn't run into anyone so its ok. Another challenge faced was the English test which, despite previously thinking I had failed it, actually did pretty well. The last challenge faced was getting the buttons to work on expression web. 

     Successes of this past week would include improvements on my 20 time project. Also seeing mocking jay part 1 in theaters was pretty great. Another succes was of course getting the interactive buttons on the site to actually show up. The last success was getting this blog done -_-

      My plans for next week are to continue progress on my 20 time project and start getting in contact with some of the bloggers. I'm also planning to finish up the college sites and do some Christmas shopping finally maybe on Black Friday?

3 DayWeekend

Overall this past week was a rough one...end of quarter 1! However Halloween at the end of the week made it better. Went out with a bunch of crazy friends and got tons of candy so it's all good:)

Overall last week was crammed. All the teachers were trying to squeeze as much into quarter 1 so naturally I had a test or quiz for every class throughout the course of 4 days. In computer we worked on our college sites. Most of the time last week I spent looking at the campuses on google earth...and exploring other places. Currently I'm still trying to figure out how the button works, mine never seems to show up entirely, only the words and no actual tab so... In English we did a project on the characters from the Canterbury tales. My group had the friar, parson, monk, nun and another one I can't remember. We had to make a PowerPoint on them and draw a picture of what we think they would have looked like based on the description given...yaaaa I can't draw, especially not people.

Challenges faced last week would include tackling multiple tests coupled with cross country and worship team, it was exhausting. Luckily I'm in my last week of cross country ever ;(still kinda sad) anyway when it's over I'll finally be able to relax... Another challenge faced was literally the coldest cross country meet of the year, and to make it even better my alarm didn't go off at 6 in the morning on Saturday so I was extremely late:/ so when we got there no one knew where the course was because it was hardly marked and we were all freezing and it actually started raining a little...rough day but we all went out to eat afterwards so:)

Successes of this past week include -surviving quarter one despite disastrous grades -last week of cross country -mapping out my college sites for computer and -possibly interning with my cousin who is a pre k teacher!!!

My plans for the upcoming week include playing guitar at youth group, the Surland's bonfire, chapel and church on Sunday...yikes. Senior pictures Thursday. Cross country meet Saturday...hopefully my ankle gets better:/ I also plan to continuing working on the physics lab which includes all of us throwing a football to see how size, weight and height factor into how far the ball goes.