We’re All in This Together

After four months here at Propel, I’m starting my fifth and final upload. I admit, I’m definitely going to miss naming all my blog posts after High School Musical songs, which my teachers have failed to realize until the very moment they read this. They questioned me for my titles, and a few points may have been lost because of it, but I stuck to my theme.

All jokes aside, my heart sinks at the near thought of leaving this program to head back to Béliveau. As much as I like my homeschool, Propel has been life-changing for me in so many ways. With 20-something new, amazing friends, and fantastic teachers who have taught us not only material in the school curriculum, but also helpful life lessons, this semester has been a dream.

You may be asking yourself, Maya, how is your project going? It’s definitely going. On the other hand, my Bohemian Rhapsody PowerPoint, which Mr. Hansen likes to call a “music video”, is going fantastically. You’re probably confused by that statement, that’s okay, come drop in during my Final Presentation for an explanation and an example of the PowerPoint.

As fun as all this joking around has been, my project is actually coming along quite smoothly. I have done an interview for my project every day this week, so far, I have over two hours of audio to listen to for my “Impact and Legacy of Rock Music” article. I’ll have to do A LOT of writing over the break, which may be slightly difficult as my family and I are heading to Arizona and California for two weeks, but I’ll make it work. Upon returning, I’ll pop the writing into Adobe InDesign, add some photos, prep it for printing, and make some copies to be handed out during my Final Presentation evening.

If you’d like to hear some more depth about my project, I will be finishing up the evening with my presentation on Monday, January 28th from 6:30PM – 8:30PM. You’ll be hearing from me, a clothing up-cycler, a musician, an artist, and three video game developers. Do not miss it! For now, check out my Legacy Artefact to hear a bit more about my project.

Thank you all so much for following my magazine thus far and thank you to my wonderful classmates and teachers for this semester.

We’re all in this together.

Click here to check out Maya’s magazine

 

 

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Get’cha Head In The Game

A large part of our curriculum is planning, which includes written pieces as well as visual representations. To complement our Action Plans, our class made Timelines to map out how long each Milestone in our projects should take. To do so, we used Gantt charts. We added a start and end day for each Milestone and calculated the amount of Action Steps needed for each Milestone. The purple bars represent the length of each Milestone. The dark purple is the Action Steps we’ve completed, and the light purple has not been started or completed yet. The yellow vertical bar is the current day and where we should be in our projects at this point. The picture I have inserted above demonstrates an example of my Gantt Chart.

I have already completed two of my Milestones, creating a platform for my online portion and creating my first round of content for my POC. Besides those, I have eight other milestones, two of which are on-going and don’t exactly have an official end date. As you can see, I am 5 days behind on a song review and an album review. I was away since Friday, the 23rd and didn’t have as much time as I thought I would’ve had to work on my project during that time. I have just completed one song review today, and I will work hard over the weekend to complete the other song review and the album review to catch myself back up.

As time is quickly ticking away, I’ve realized we have only two months left in our Propel semester. That means it’s time for me to work hard and get my head in the game. The next few weeks are jammed packed with a song review, two album reviews and a concert review. Throughout that time, I will also need to find one more person to be interviewed for the Impact of Rock ‘N Roll interview. Once all candidates are booked, I will need to find a time where they can meet to be interviewed. I can already imagine writing this article will take a while, so I’d like to have the interviews finished as fast as I can. Which means, the next few weeks will be fast paced and I will be working hard, and late into the night. I still need to make questions for the interviews as well, which is stressing me out.

I just need to take a deep breath and relax. With a lot of effort and dedication, I will complete my project by the end of January, and it will be great.

 

 

Stick To The Status Quo

Honestly, the past few weeks haven’t been my most productive times here at the program. There was bound to be a time where my intense procrastination kicked in, and now is that time. Although, I can say that since November 2nd, when I had my Action Plan conference with Mr. Hansen, I’ve been way more productive.

In our Action Plan conferences, we make an Action Plan. Pretty self-explanatory, right? Our Action Plans consist of Milestones, the key-elements of our projects, and the steps we’ll need to take to obtain said Milestone. Between my Big Picture Goals conference and my Action Plan conference, nothing has really changed. I’m glad that no drastic changes have been made, it helps me see the end a lot easier.

After having finished creating my website and finished the first round of content for my Proof of Concept, Mr. Hansen and I have created 5 other major project Milestones for me. My project is unique because I don’t really have any Milestones that have exact start and end dates. Throughout the next few months, I have to write 5 album reviews and 5 song reviews, I have to attend 5 concerts and write reviews on them as well as promote the website on social media and research different printing options for making physical copies. I will also have to work on my feature piece, which will be conducting an interview about the impact of Rock ‘N Roll through the eyes of four different generations. So far, I have enlisted the help of my friend, Kat. Kat is 16 years old and will represent the younger generation for the interview. I am in the midst of trying to find someone 35ish, 50ish and 65ish for the interview. The impact of Rock ‘N Roll article will be my biggest article and the one I will inevitably put the most effort and time into.

The next few weeks will entail a couple of album reviews, I have 3 planned so far, as well as a couple upcoming singles to review. Social Media promotion is something I will be constantly doing throughout the upcoming months. Mr. Hansen also told me to start chipping away at the impact of Rock ‘N Roll article whenever I’m stuck or have finished what I need to for the day. I will try to stick to the plan for the next few weeks and try not to stray away from my general idea.

As a wise song once stated, “Stick to the stuff you know. It is better by far to keep things as they are, don’t mess with the flow, no no. Stick to the status quo.”

Just Getting Started

Fast forward a few weeks later from my previous blog post, and here I am. It is currently the middle of week seven, two weeks following our Proof of Concept phase. My Proof of Concept was an interesting one to say the least. As mentioned in my last post, my POC consisted of many, overwhelming small tasks. I am happy to say I officially finished everything on my Proof of Concept checklist.

My Proof of Concept was filled with that of self-discovery, exploration and unfortunately, procrastination. My POC was jam-packed from start to finish, but my stalling definitely didn’t make it easier on myself. The two weeks at school during this phase were spent formulating plans for my articles and constructing my elaborate website. I’ll admit, I didn’t even begin writing my four articles until the Saturday of the last POC week. Our Proof of Concept was due two days later, on the Monday. I wrote my Interview article on the Saturday, and my Concert review, Album review and Letter from the Editor all on the Sunday. After taking roughly two and a half hours to write each article, an hour to edit and revise each one, and two hours total to add media to each article and make sure they were formatted correctly to be able to read it on the website, I bet you can imagine how exhausted I was. About 16 hours of my weekend was gone, but don’t feel bad for me, it was entirely my fault.

Procrastination is something I hope to eliminate from my work ethic in the future, but for now, at least I pulled through and completed all my POC tasks. I am genuinely very proud of the work I accomplished, I am so impressed with how professional my articles sound. I am hoping to have printed physical copies of my magazine by the end of the semester, as well as continuing to add content to my website. I have started on Adobe InDesign, a platform Mr. P told me would be a great place to make a magazine template on. From that point, I will add my POC content to the magazine and if it works, I’ll go from there. The next few months will consist of many interviews with artists and the general public, going to many concerts, listening to many different songs and albums and of course, tons of writing. At this point, it is unclear exactly what the end result of my project will be, but I have a vision I hope I can fulfill.

Until then, I am excited to see the journey this program will take me on and the life experiences I’ll undergo throughout the process.

This semester is going to be a wild ride, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

You can check out my magazine’s website, https://highnotemagazine.site123.me, to see the articles I’ve written and see the website I’ve created.

The Start Of Something New

Saying I was nervous for Propel is an understatement. Being accepted for 1st semester gave me some jitters, even though that’s the semester I hoped to be put into. Would my homeschool classmates forget about me? My teachers as well? And what about the program? Will I be able to complete a project in time? Will this all be worth it?

I first heard about Propel from a friend of mine. She is a year older than I am and had just been accepted into the program. I immediately knew I wanted to apply. It seemed like a brilliant opportunity to take things I loved and turn them into a passion.

I was beyond excited when I found out I was accepted. Endless amounts of project ideas popped into my head, but as the semester was approaching I realized I didn’t know what I wanted to do anymore. I still had many ideas, but none of them seemed right. My initial project idea was writing an original musical, an idea I had for about a year before applying. I still love that idea, but it doesn’t seem like the right direction. I was given the idea for a music platform by a friend from Vancouver and I fell in love with the idea. As drastically different as it was from my original idea, I knew this was the one.

The first day of the program was nerve-wracking, but exciting. I absolutely love the environment. The people, the room, the energy. It’s such a positive, motivating atmosphere. Mr. Hansen and Mr. Patrician give us fantastic tips and tricks about how to improve on our writing, speaking and everything in between. Honestly, when I go back to my homeschool I will be WAY more advanced than my peers as we get feedback to make our presentations extremely professional.

We are currently on the third week of the program, starting up our Proof Of Concept phase on October 1st. Proof Of Concept is a two week time period dedicated to exactly what you think it means, showing proof of your concept. We are required to do a smaller portion of our project during this time to prove to our teachers that our project plan makes sense and is possible to complete during the semester. My project conference was terrifying if I’m being honest. I was very overwhelmed by all the small tasks I am required to do for Proof Of Concept. By January, I am hoping to have created a music magazine, meaning my tasks for the next two weeks will be completing an album and concert review, interviewing a Propel artist, coming up with a logo and title, writing a letter from the editor and many more similar small tasks. Music is so important to me and I figured this magazine would be the perfect way to share my love with the world.

After a talk with my mom, she said that if anyone can complete these tasks, it’s me. She also found that my Proof Of Concept sounds like fun and she thinks I will love it. After a bit of thinking, I realized this will be fun. This is what I’ve been wanting to do. Music mixed with journalism, event promotion, interviewing. Why wouldn’t I love it?

Going back to the burning question at the beginning, Will this all be worth it?

I can honestly say, I know it will be.