Reflections

Introduction

This page shows everything we have done in the first quarter of this year. This quarter was called the reflections unit and it focused on us and who we are as people, including our core values, our culture, and why we hold these values. This was important to figuring out who we are and helped us write our college personal essays which would set us up for college. I learned that I value strength, consistency, and beauty I try to show this in each piece I make. One thing that I value as an “essence object” is my goggles and I explain this in my personal essay.

Core Value

This is a project where we showcase our core values using animations in After Effects. This is how the video came out I like the music all the animations and the values I chose because I feel like it represents myself a lot.

Mandala

For this mandala, I wanted to encapsulate who I am and what I appreciate. As far as values go I wanted to incorporate strength and beauty. For who I am I wanted to add stuff relating to being Irish and a Californian. For strength, I added a couple of features including a crown, a guy with knives, and sharper strokes to show more strength. For beauty, I included a small dove, a flower, and a heart. I incorporated a four-leaf clover for being Irish and a sunset for being a Californian.

The process of making this mandala

The final results

Laser burnt into a wood piece.

Personal Essay

Thus far this is my essay I try to show challenges and overcoming those challenges. I show my struggle with consistency and how it’s not about showing up on the day but showing up every day. This created growth and I showed this with my struggle with swimming, instead of giving up on this thing that I’ve been trying for so long but added to that by playing water polo and still using what I have to my advantage.

Throughout the last three years, the only things I have succeeded in are water polo and swimming. I have failed in classes, in the gym, and at businesses, I have tried to start. Even though I love throwing weights, learning new things, and building something I’m proud of, staying consistent has always been a problem for me. I would love to do a lot of things, but I was always stagnant, and I failed with most things I’ve tried. 

At 6, I joined the Green Meadow Marlins, a local swim team. I loved showing up to practice to compete with my friends and challenging myself and every day I brought my reflecting silver goggles. I showed up to every practice and tried my best. Again and again, I was there and it showed because one summer I was at the final JSSL swim meet competing in the 25-yard breaststroke and I beat every 6 and under boy in my league. Swimming was my favorite thing to do, and day after day I swam. After swimming for 5 years straight, I showed up to practice one day and forgot my silver reflecting goggles. I still swam in the water but it wasn’t the same. Even with borrowed goggles, I didn’t swim with everything I had. At this point, I had lost my goggles, I stopped going to practice and would fight my mom who tried to force me to go. Eventually, she stopped trying to make me and I would only swim during summers when I had no chance. Each race made me madder and even though I hated to lose change didn’t come easy for me or my mom. When going down in swimming my mother’s alcoholism started to consume her further and challenging myself was harder than ever. I took my home life with me to practice and that started to drag me down I fell harder than ever.

After one year of middle school and one summer, COVID-19 hit, and swimming was no longer a possibility. I came out of COVID skinny, pale, and out of shape,  I was off to Los Altos High School where I started a new journey playing water polo. I showed up the first day not knowing how to keep myself afloat. I was confused about how to play the sport, all the rules, and the positions. I made many mistakes but this new sport helped me find my silver reflecting goggles again. I reignited my passion and started swimming and competing every day. I also loved water polo and stuck with it through the 4 years of high school, playing with the school team and a club. I also joined the school swim team, returning to Greenmeadow swim and helping coach some youth swimmers. As well as being a lifeguard at Greenmeadow,  I never really had a break from the pool and my goggles sometimes fall off but I always pick them up and put them back on.  I’ve been up and down as a water polo player but for my final school season, I was selected as a team captain and a starter for varsity. All of the hours in the pool finally paid off, my time as a water polo player has taught me how to be consistent.  Unfortunately, This value was learned later in my academic career and I hope to continue to have all A’s throughout my senior year. I learned that the brain is also a muscle and consistency with training will

The PSA assignment

For this piece, we were faced with the task of making a PSA on any topic of our liking and I chose to go with drunk driving. This topic has always been scary to me because you never if the guy driving the car next to you is drunk and he can just run into you. This isn’t my favorite thing I have ever made it’s a little messy and I wish I used the pen tool in Illustrator to create this. But I like the color scheme and the text I feel like it pops out well compared to the rest of the piece.

Aboriginal Dot

This piece is a take on the Australian Aboriginal dot painting and we used our astrological signs to lead this piece. Most symbols in this piece are centered around being a Pisces like the fish, water, the symbol in the middle, and the constellation in the background. This piece was hard because of the sheer number of dots but the little details in this piece bring it all together. We also used some symbols that the Aboriginals themselves used to use, including the center spiral being their campsite and the lines that flow is a river or just water in this case. I used the water and the fish around the campsite because the water is where I’m calmest and it feel like home being a water polo player and swimmer. I love How this piece ended up, especially the boarder because that is where I spent most of my time