Diet for Dance: The Paleo Diet Part 1

At last years districts competition, the Chatelaines

went home with a clean sweep.

My chosen IRP book is Practical Paleo by Diane Sanfilippo, and is about the Paleo diet. My goal is to improve my eating habits to better myself as an athlete. Paleo is short for Paleolithic, and my book states, "Whatever name you choose, the "Paleo" way of eating is simple: Mimic our ancestors, who suffered from fewer chronic diseases than modern populations" (Sanfilippo 22). The diet is similar to the diet of cavemen, in that it cuts out gluten, grain, legumes, dairy, and refined sugars (things cavemen didn’t eat). The book also mentions that Paleo is an extremely tough, but extremely beneficial way of eating, and it supports fat loss, digestive health, blood sugar regulation, heart health, cancer recovery, athletic performance and much more. The book offers many different dietary plans, and I am going to focus on the athletic performance section of the book to help me prepare for the upcoming dance competition season. My diet started November 23rd, and I plan to continue until December 15th. The first few days haven't been as tough as I thought they would be. I have swapped unhealthy snack options for fruit, almonds, and other healthy foods. I think it is too soon for me to tell, but I feel a little more fit at dance, due to fueling my body with healthier foods. This is especially helpful, since our team just started going full force into competition routines. If you are an athlete, do you think a healthy diet change could help you improve in your sport?

My go-to snacks.

Sonic Generations Speedrunning: Green Hill

Sonic Generations Speedrunning

Stage: Classic Green Hill

The book I selected for my second quarter IRP is Sonic Generations Official Strategy Guide. The goal of most Sonic games is to get to the end of the stage as fast as possible, and this book provides information on what paths to take in a stage to achieve just that. Sonic Generations is a game split with two different types of gameplay, Classic Sonic, and Modern Sonic. As my first blog post, I decided to go simple and play as Classic Sonic in the first stage, Green Hill. I will be comparing how much time can be saved by using the shortcuts the book mentions. Also, I apologize for the poor video and sound quality of the videos.

Attempt #1

For my first attempt, I decided to play through the stage normally without taking any shortcuts. This mostly consisted of me taking the bottom path of the level. While I did get hit by an enemy once at the 1:32 mark in the first video, it didn't significantly impact my time. It would've saved around three seconds (at most) if I didn't take the hit. In the end, I finished the stage with a time of 1 minute 33.59 seconds.

Attempt #2

For the second attempt, I played through the stage again while using shortcuts mentioned in the book. The first shortcut I took was at the 0:25 mark in the second video. In order to take the shortcut, I had to "Jump and Spin Jump again to take out a Buzz Bomber hovering to the right. If done with the proper timing, Sonic bounces from the attack onto the upper level" (Birlew 29).

The next shortcut was taken at the :37 mark, where there was a platform by four raised rings I had to jump to. According to the book, "Jumping onto the platform and then from there basically allows you to skip the next area, shortening your stage time immensely" (Birlew 30). Additionally, another shortcut can be performed immediately after. When taking the previous shortcut, you go through a tunnel (0:42 mark), "Emerging from the tunnel, you want to jump to the next level up and then jump up again to reach another shortcut" (Birlew 30). This shortcut was taken at the 0:44 mark.

The final shortcut required me to propel myself off an enemy at the 0:58 mark. This lead me to a "...yellow Spring concealed in a palm tree" (Birlew 33). The second part of this shortcut I only half achieved. The book stated "Spin Dash to break through the boulder blocking the right edge. This should propel you over a couple of platforms and through a Moto Bug and some Power Sneakers, which increase Sonic's speed and shorten his momentum buildup time. Stop as soon as you collect these, then Spin Dash and release to fly uphill and over the next gorge" (Birlew 33).

Oops!

You can clearly see me Spin Dashing into the rock at the 1:01 mark, however I did it too close, as I completely flew over the Moto Bug, but hit the Power Sneakers. However, I did not attempt to slow down, so instead of propelling myself over the gorge like the book mentioned, I ended up crashing into the edge of the ledge at the 1:03 mark and fell into the gorge! Fortunately, the Power Sneakers allowed me to easily breeze through the bottom section I fell into, and finish the stage with ease.

Even with this slip up, the alternate paths I took during this attempt allowed me to get an impressive time of 59.83 seconds! That's in total 33.76 seconds saved from taking most of the high pathways!

Conclusion

To wrap this post up, this book has proved surprisingly useful to aid me in my speedruns in this game. The directions may sound confusing to me at first, but they make much more sense once I started to play through the stage. I'm looking forward to using this book when I get into more difficult and longer stages in the game.

Have you ever played a Sonic game before? If so, what's your favorite? Also, what stage do you think I should speedrun next? I was thinking about doing one of these four: Chemical Plant, Perfect Chaos, City Escape, and Rooftop Run. Please feel free to leave comments about these questions, or anything else you want me to cover!

Birlew, Dan. "Green Hill: Act 1." Sonic Generations. Indianapolis, IN: DK/BradyGames, 2011. 26-33. Print.

How To Play Guitar Part 1

6 string guitar.

Guitar. A finger-picking instrument by just using your hands and a little passion to it. A guitar has 6 strings and each string has its own tune. The thickest string is the sixth string, which is E (Low Pitched). The first string, which is the thinnest string on a guitar on the very bottom, is E(high pitched).

I was into guitar videos and wanting to have a guitar ever since I was 10 years old, and was inspired to sing and play guitar at the same time. I developed myself watching videos of people playing the instrument. And as you may know, an instrument like this could cost you a bunch!


At the start of my guitar journey, I had this mind blowing thing that I had, and it bugged my throughout my days. The first song I wanted to play was "Circle of Friends" by the anime "K Project". I started looking up videos on YouTube, finding a guitar tutorial for that song. So I found the tutorial yes? and at that time on, my fingers were twitching, and I was so stressed that I couldn't play it.

At the start of your days of playing guitar, start by understanding each string. the 6 strings are EADGBE. (top to low). Now, in order for you to understand what the person is saying, you must know the "fret" and the "strings", which was mentioned before. Each space is, as you can see, is the frets. now if you were to play the D chord, you would have to set your pointer finger on the 2nd fret, 3rd string. next, set your middle finger on the 2nd fret, 1st string, and finally lay your ring finger on the 3rd fret, 2nd string. This will bring you to a D chord.

         This is the first chord I ever played, and I hope this short demonstration helped you understand how the guitar works, and what you need to know. It may be a struggle, but I'm sure you'll find yourself playing. I hope you guys like it. The first chord. Now, that'll be all for today, and I wish you guys the best. One more tip before leaving, even if you struggle, take a break, and continue the next day. There will be no difference into putting work in just one day. You may have to rest your fingers after playing because the tip of your fingers might get hard, and dented by the strings. For the most part, have fun while playing the guitar, because, having a good feel is your most important musical asset.

This is the end of part 1. Thank you for reading! Good Day! :)

My Question: By which part of  learning guitar do you not understand? Would you want to make your own song in the guitar? If that is the case, then let me ask you this: What Journey will you take?

Japanese Kanji

The Japanese language has always been an intriguing one for me. In 6th grade, I stumbled upon Japanese culture through music, and became fascinated with the idea of another language.

For me, the most important part about learning a language for anybody is your amount interest. No matter the language, or how "practical" you are told it may or may not be,  your interest and dedication determines your success to mastering communication and proficiency in any scenario.

An example I'd like to use is this: Let's say you've been interested in cooking for a long while. It's something that makes you happy, and through it, you want to share your experience and talent with others to make them happy. Your friend however, has picked up on your interest, and starts to talk to you about "how far you can go with cooking."

"Maybe you should get into something more practical, you know, like an actual profession. When are
you ever going to use cooking except just to get by through the day? Don't you want to know something more useful?"

And to that I say-

"No!"

If your passion is cooking, and that's your dream, no matter your level, you will achieve personal excellency through hard work. No matter how good you are at something else, there is no talent like one that comes from your heart. Languages are the exact same way! Your passion to learn will lead you to success as long as you keep your mind on a steady and focused path.

For this project, I will begin by reading: "Read and Write Japanese Scripts" by Helen Gilhooly. With her book, I will be able to begin my journey on learning Japanese kanji, the third and final "alphabet" of words in the language. 

Japanese, like Chinese, has a specific way kanji needs to be written for it to be understood. For English speakers, the way we write "a" or "z"  has no impact as long as it is still legible. I have provided a full stroke order picture down below. 

The first word we will go over in the post is "to listen." This will introduce kanji, and hopefully explain in a way that made most sense to me while learning. 

The wonderful thing about learning Japanese kanji, is the fact that with simple tools or creativity, kanji's meaning can be easily remembered! Let's take a look at the kanji for "to listen."

Look odd or hard to remember? Think not! Japanese kanji is not simply random confusing strokes, (although they can tend to look like it at first glance) there are actually patterns that we can see within the kanji to deduct what it means, even from not knowing the word originally!

The first deduction we can see within this kanji, is the kanji surrounding the inner symbol, which is　門　（モン、かど）。 This kanji when used here, means "gate," and can also referring to "opening."

The stroke for this kanji may seem odd at first, but once done a few times, is easy to memorize! In order from left to right, this is how you would write this kanji.

*Note, horizontal strokes are typically written from left to right, and vertical strokes up to down.*

 Once broken down, we can see that this kanji isn't as intimidating as it appears! To learn Japanese kanji at a good rate, it is important to notice these main kanji, especially since if it pops up again but with a different kanji in the middle or beside it, we can use context clues to decipher the kanji.

But what about the tiny one in the middle? What does that mean? 

Well, on closer inspection, we can see that the kanji placed in the middle of 門 is 耳　（みみ）. This kanji is meant for the word "ear."  

So, when putting both kanji together, it may seem odd. "Gate ear?" I asked when reading the book. "What could this mean?" While thinking abstractly, you can come to the conclusion that this full kanji means to listen!

"Opening your ears" is a very clear way to understand and remember this kanji, and was enjoyable to learn and fully understand the meaning behind it, instead of just memorizing random strokes.

*Look back at the original kanji, is the meaning clearer to see now? Within the book to help look for the kanji, the example used is: "A neighbor pressing an ear between the gates of the house to hear the gossip." (Gilhooly, 58) 

As a first lesson and trial, I am glad to have spent time putting together this blog post and truly understanding the word and it's meaning/origin. My next blog post will feature more than one kanji, but for this, I wanted to hopefully inspire a start to understanding and enjoying the full picture of the language. 

Are there any languages you're interested in? If so, what seems to be the hardest part about the language? Speaking, writing, listening? Leave comments and questions below, thanks for reading! 

Reading and Writing Japanese Kanji

I am using a textbook called Adventures in Japanese 1 to learn how to read, write, and speak the Japanese language. For my blog posts, I will be tracking my progress on reading and writing.

Japan started out with only a spoken language, but this changed when Japan came in contact with China. The Japanese adopted a writing style from the Chinese called Kanji. Kanji is one of the three writing systems that the Japanese use today. Hiragana and Katakana are both phonetic systems (based on sound). Kanji however, is a semantic system (based largely on meaning).

To start being able to read and write Kanji, the book offers some great tips. I decided to start out with the numbers 1-10 since they are probably the most basic. Notice the pictures used to help you memorize the numbers.

(Peterson, 82)

(Peterson, 116)

The book does a great job at showing ways to memorize Kanji. This is beneficial to me understanding the Japanese language because there are thousands of Kanji to learn, which will take a long time. Over the course of school, a Japanese student learns roughly 2500 Kanji. After learning Hiragana and Katakana, I can now start learning Kanji and incorporating this into my writing. I will also be able to read a lot more.

Here is how the numbers one through ten are written from Hiragana to Kanji.

1) いち or  一
2) に or ニ
3)さん or 三
4)よん or 四
5)ご or 五
6)ろくor 六
7)しち or 七
8)はち or 八
9)きゅう or 九
10)じゅう or 十

"Although it can appear complicated at first, kanji is an essential and important part of the Japanese language." (Peterson, 9)

There are many different strategies, such as grouping and mastering, or doing one at a time. If you were learning Kanji, or anything else that has a lot to be memorized, how would you go about learning it? 

Blog 1: Tips & Tricks to Better Understand and Play the Guitar

My IRP is about learning to understand how to play the acoustic guitar.

In the book "Learn To Play The Guitar" by Phil Capone, one of his lessons talks about guitar picking styles. There isn't just one type of picking style, but many. Each person has a unique style that is comfortable for them and the genre of music they prefer to play on the guitar. Capone's view on teachers that teach picking techniques is that "while they may have discovered a system that works for themselves, it won't necessarily work for you" (Capone). He basically means why would you learn the technique for country music when you want to play blues music? Guitar playing is all about creating your own sound and individuality. Songs played by the guitar today wouldn't sound as cool if musicians only strummed downward with a pick instead of also playing with their thumb or "tap" on the fingerboard. However, before setting off to finding your unique style there are two right-hand positions that are basic and non-genre specific. These two techniques will help your skills grow without having bad habits.

Right-Hand Position for Playing With a Pick
Before learning hand placement we should know how to hold the pick. All you need to do is place the pick in between your thumb and index finger.

Notice how there is little of the pick left visible. The more of the pick you hold, the easier it is to control

Now gently place the third and fourth fingers on top of the guitar right below the strings

Right-Hand Position For Fingerpicking
When playing with only your fingers, your hand should be just above the strings with your thumb parallel to the base strings (the lowest strings, the ones closest to you). 

               

Tip - Keeping your fingers in a clawlike shape will help you pick the strings without needing to move your hand

That's it for the beginnings of understanding the guitar! These tips were really helpful for me to be able to move my hand up and down the strings much more easily. Right now I'm unfamiliar with some strumming patterns, but it's a start. I want to know something. If you were to play guitar which picking style would you prefer or do you have a unique technique you would like to share? Stay tuned for more on learning to play the guitar.

  

The project I chose was drawing! I already draw a lot but I find that the book I picked up, which is essentially drawing lessons from professional artists, can help me out. What I plan to work on to show my improvement is mostly figure drawing and sketching, to try and get the most detailed sketches i can in under 5 minutes. This is my first attempt.

My camera kinda sucks don't hurt me. What I'm trying to do is improve on detail, anatomy, and efficiency to optimize my ability to quickly draw and draw accurately, especially in poses and figures; something I find I'm lacking in. Please give me feedback if possible!

Blog 1: An Introduction to My Plan for Healthier Eating

The book, "The 150 healthiest Foods on Eath," by Jonny Bowden, a nationally know expert on nutrition, is what I'm basing my blog around.

Essentially, this book contains a plethora of healthy foods, their nutritional facts, and how to prepare them for safe consumption. As apposed to following a recipe book for healthy foods, I instead took to reviewing these suggested foods, and took to incorporate as many as possible into my diet. My consumption of said foods, and their health benefits, will be recorded in a table, akin to something on the right. 

Updates will be posted in forms of blogs that will highlight some foods that I found to be either particularly helpful to one's health, or to be quite delicious (or perhaps both.) My main goal is to see if any obvious health benefits occur, and to also test myself on how far these foods can be incorporated into my now-revamped diet. Feedback is of course appreciated, and let me know if one of my suggestions was favorable to you!

Learning the Piano:
The project I picked up is to learn how to play piano by sheet music. I already know how to read music for a violin, so I am excited to compare the difference.

So far in my book I have learned a lot of history on music. For example, it explains how religious chants used to be written on a piece of paper with dots on top of every syllable. “The tune for the words was passed from one generations of choir members to another, until someone got a bright idea to put dots over the words, to remind the singer of the movement of the notes” (16 Martin). If the dot went higher than the tune went higher (16 Martin). But the only downfall was not knowing the rhythm. Later, lines and spaces began to symbolize a specific pitch or note (16 Martin)

My book, Piano for Everyone by Margaret Ann Martin, also describes how to read music sheets along with note names and symbols that show how long to hold a note. For ex. A half note is held for 2 beats, etc. Although I already knew a lot of the music information that was in the basics of the book, it helped me to look at a piece of piano music and not feel completely lost. I was successful in playing baa baa black sheep and twinkle, twinkle little star, after a little practice. I found that it is not as difficult with my music background. The book also suggested to clap the rhythm of baa baa back sheep then play it on the piano which was a good idea that helped me play.

I learned that in piano sheet music, there are upper and lower staffs. The upper staff, called the treble staff, has the notes that the right hand will play. The lower staff, also called the bass staff consists of notes that the left hand will play. “Notes written on the bass staff are for men’s bass and baritone voices… and the low keys” (19 Martin). The lower keys are what create the background for complex sounding music. This improved my piano playing because I am now able to identify the staffs and the keys that each hand is responsible for. The music that was included in the book was not very complex, which was a great starter.

The tunes my book included are Oh Susana, twinkle twinkle little star, Baa baa black sheep and many more

What type of music do you enjoy?

Understanding the Piano #1: Introduction and White/Black Keys

Learning to play the piano in my living room has always been something I've thought of doing, but never had quite the time or motivation for. It's been a goal that I've sort of pushed to the back of my mind with all the other things that are going on in my life. However, with the help of the Q2 IRP and YouTube videos of all these people beautifully playing the instrument, I figured that now would be a better time than ever to start.

Currently, I do play violin in the KR orchestra, but learning piano for the first time is very...different. With the violin, there are so many things to think about: the fingers, the bow, the holding it, the bow hold, the vibrato, that sort of thing. On the piano though, you just stick your fingers on a couple of notes and the instrument makes a nice big sound for you. Once you can get past the intimidating part of learning which note is which, learning the piano doesn't seem so bad, especially since I have a fair bit of musical background.

The Keys 

For starters, the first thing you notice on your instrument are 88 black and white keys, each producing a unique sound. The white keys represent the notes A B C D E F G, whereas the black keys are flat (♭) and sharp (♯) versions of these notes such as B♭ or C♯. They come in consecutive groups of two and three. There are never two sets of two black keys and two sets of three black keys in a row.

Identifying which key plays which note though is a harder task. Luckily for us, Blake Neely, author of "Piano for Dummies", has a strange but extremely effective method of telling white keys apart called "Blake's E-Z Key Finder". He says to "use your imagination and think of any set of two black keys as a pair of chopsticks. Think of any set of three black keys as the tines on a fork. Chopsticks starts with the letter 'C' and fork starts with the letter 'F'" (Neely 31). For the other white keys, they follow in order, so after C would be D, E, and so on until it reaches G. After G, the notes go back to A and the cycle repeats until you reach the end of the piano.

"Think of any set of three black keys as the times on a fork. Chopsticks start with the letter 'C' and fork starts with the letter 'F'"

For the black keys, "the suffix sharp is used for a black key to the right of (or higher than) a white key." The author compares it to a knife, which is sharp and lays on the right side of the table. On the other hand, "the suffix flat is used for a black key to the left of (or lower than) a white key" (Neely 32). However, no black keys reside between B and C or E and F. This is no mistake because in theory, C is also B-sharp and, similarly, E is also F-flat, which may be daunting to beginners but trust me, you'll be alright not knowing why for now.

Knowing where notes are and which keys represent them was fairly easy for me to get he hang of, though it is definitely something that I will have to improve on in the near future. For the time being, I need to practice identifying them and putting my finger where it needs to be for each note.

Overall 

So far, the idea of which key plays which note is still a little foreign to me, though my understanding of the piano has improved. I now know which key is which and where they are located, allowing me to apply my knowledge of musical notes onto the keyboard. Once I overcome the challenge of memorizing where each note is, I will be ready to start learning the fingerings and when/where to put my hands.

Does the whole concept of flats and sharps or where notes are bring you more confusion?

Neely, Blake. Piano for Dummies. New York: IDG Books Worldwide, 2009, Print.

first drawing post

my IRP book for chapter 2 is drawing and cartooning 1,001figures in action which is written by dick Gautier. I am bad at drawing that is why I picked this book, the book contains exercises for drawing, so you can get better at it. such as the one I did which wanted me to "not lift your pen or pencil off the paper-work in one continuous line. who cares how it comes out? it may help you loosen your approach to your work." in the drawing I attempted to draw a face without picking up my pencil until finished drawing.

Knitting: Introductions to the Wonderful World of Yarn

Hello! As part of my Quarter 2 IRP (also known as the reason why this entire blog exists) I'm learning how to knit!

This book is actually pretty old. Good thing knitting doesn't change much

Knitting is more or less a series of weaves that form a flat surface, done with a set of two or more straight needles. You can use all sorts of materials for both yarn and needles. Personally I picked out a pair of metal needles and wool yarn to learn with. A friend of mine recommended wooden needles since they are a bit more sticky and can hold stitches better, but the store didn't have them.

Yarn and needles! It's hard to knit without both of them.

And I've been practicing a bit with the book, occasionally consulting the great deity in the sky called the internet to get additional advice. I've been practicing casting on, where you get the yarn on the needle properly, and knitting itself. My experience with casting on is now successful, but when I started the actual knitting I accidentally used the wrong strand of yarn on one of the rows and tangled the project >_< .

A page in the book discussing the process of tying off a piece of yarn, something that I probably will not do for a few months :^)

So yeah! That's what I got so far. Life got hectic for awhile which suddenly put a stop to work, but now I'm getting back into the groove and getting ready to work on it again! Especially to reach that two posts a month goal. How's everybody else's projects going? Anyone got any pointers they wanna give on knitting?

As a bonus, here's the yarn that I'm using once I understand knitting fully. I hope to make a scarf with this stuff by the end of the IRP (hopefully)!

Japanese Cooking

There are two things that have interested me for years, now. One is cooking. My own lazy disposition has prevented me from pursuing anything along this line, at least until this IRP. The second interest is Japanese culture. I am currently in a second-year Japanese class, which is one of my favorite classes. The book I chose, The Essentials of Japanese Cooking, is the perfect bridge between those two subjects. With this project, I plan to improve my skills in cooking Japanese cuisine

I have decided to start out with a simple dish, a dessert called “sweet potato candy”. You start out with the sweet potato, around 11 oz.

One regular sweet potato

 Then you peel it, and cut it into pieces about 3/4 of an inch thick, and put them into water just deep enough to cover the sweet potatoes.

Cut sweet potatoes

Then you boil it.
When the sweet potatoes are soft from boiling, drain them in a colander, making sure to get excess water out. Then, you essentially mash the potatoes.

The mash

This mashing should be done on the stove over a low heat, which will make the mashed sweet potato thicker, and the perfect consistency to arrange how we want them to.

There are only two things that are added to this mash for flavor: five teaspoons of sugar, and one dash of salt. This small addition echoes one of the principals of Japanese cooking: to maximize natural flavors. "Most Japanese cuisine is only seasoned lightly; strong spices are rarely used... the Japanese believe this allows the true flavors of foods to come through" (Suzuki 8).

The next step is to take around two tablespoons of the sweet potato mash and mix it with まっちゃ (matcha, a green tea powder) in a small amount water. This gives those two tablespoons a green color, used for style and a green tea taste (green food coloring can also be used for those who don't enjoy the taste of green tea).

Next, is the presentation. This dessert is served in the form of small balls. You take a sixth of sweet potato mash, and put it on a damp, clean, washcloth. You then take a sixth of the green sweet potato, and put it on top of the original sweet potato mash. You then take the washcloth, close it up, and make the sweet potato into little balls.

Final product displayed elegantly on two plates

Then, you do that with the rest of the mash! This concludes your sweet potato candy making session.

As an added bonus, I will give a short description of the taste: a sweet potato. Very similar to yams, if you've eaten those. This tastes like sweet potato, but sweeter. It's very good, but not at all similar to Western desserts. It went well with my Costco^© tamale bake. There is one good thing: this dessert is nearly fat-free! (Suzuki 146). This is because the Japanese rarely add anything like oil to things to preserve the natural flavor, as stated above.

My dinner from 11-30-17