In this project on Human Rights, we focused on improving/learning how to engage in meaningful service learning that results in the betterment of those in need. This is an important skill because in the future, we will definitely be expanding our interactions more with the outside world, with different peoples, with different organizations and companies too. One thing I improved while working on this project is my ability to use my home language to apply it to my schoolwork because I translated (successfully! 😀 ) three posters my group created for Heartbeat Vietnam, the organization we were collaborating with in this project. This blog post provides a reflection on my work, as well as a sample of what I accomplished.

What will you do to continue your involvement with this group or social issue, or with other service work?
Next year, I have took noticed that high schoolers are continuing the collaboration with Heartbeat Vietnam, therefore there's a possibility that I'll join.I would love to continue working with this amazing organization and also to spread more awareness to the SSIS community as well as the larger community/ the public. There are also a range of diverse organizations so I might take a look at that to maybe try something new 🙂
What did you learn from visiting other exhibits?
From visiting other exhibits, I have learned that there are a wide range of outstanding organizations whom are working in Vietnam to help create a better community. There were some really interesting topics and the solutions that some groups came up with were very thoughtful and meaningful. In the end, every organization present all primarily focused on just wanting to help people that are in need for a better life, a better future.
How did my collaboration with classmates help me focus my ideas or provide new insights?
My collaboration with my classmates had helped me in ways such as developing my leadership as well as partnership skills. I have learned something new that most of the times, thinking out a plan beforehand can be better than just diving straight in without knowing anything (because I sometimes tend to use the action option first before thinking properly and assessing the situation). Furthermore, I felt that I've improved on managing my time more wisely for this project and also to feel more confident about my abilities to use my mother's language in helping to create the three posters we made for Heartbeat Vietnam.

My group on collaborating with Heartbeat Vietnam to tackle the issue of sanitation problems. In this picture, we are showing Mr. Apino our display and what we have done to help the organization.


This year in yearbook, there were many positive as well as negative faces of Yearbook. Overall, Yearbook for me was a very enjoyable experience for me.

The positive moments in Yearbook for me was that I have acquired a lot of new skills and techniques for future references and usage such as I can now go out and knowing the fundamental basics of how to take a standard photo from two different notable camera brands, both similar on the outside physical appearances but on the technical and mechanical inside are completely different. I can also position my camera to how I want it to be for taking my "perfect" shot. Furthermore, I can now edit photos; likewise to photoshopping and cropping it out to the most decent frame for the viewers to see. I also learnt additional skills for how to use Adobe Indesign to design Yearbook spreads, and journalism such as asking students their thoughts for certain spreads. I felt that a major accomplishment of mine was to have made new friends and acquaintances in Yearbook class since I was a new student to this school. The cooperation level of each individual were all above standard as everyone respected each other opinion's and different perspectives on key elements such as spreads (the layout and design of it, what are the quotes to be mentioned, the fonts, etc.) and going to take pictures (deciding on where's the location to take it, how to take the photos the way we want it to be taken, sharing and taking turns of the camera). It was really fun going out to take photos personally for me because I enjoy going outside the classroom to explore around the school. Overall, this year in Yearbook class was a very enjoyable moment for me and I will preserve these memories to the future.

However, in contrast to the positive moments in Yearbook; there are also some low moments. For me, it was just sitting down onto the Macs and focusing on the spreads. Although I know that this stage in very important for Yearbook, I personally prefer the beginning of the year where all the class go out to just take the Practice Photos. Yearbook then turn out to be kinda more of an individual's work with some brief instance of group work. Even sometimes, there were moments where the aspect of "respect" in group work isn't at a high standard too.

Overall, as I've mentioned before; Yearbook was fun, but there were high and low moments of it. Yearbook was an delightful experience and I would like to continue the class in future, or if for some reason I'm unable to; I will remember all the positive as well as negative times in Yearbook as an grade 8 student and keep them as some of my dearest memories.

A few weeks ago we started on writing a poem focused on a specific theme that we choose. Then we used Lifecards to make a poster and Explain Everything to make an analysis video. Below is my poem's poster and also below the poster is the Explain Everything analysis video 🙂

This is my poem's poster. The topic is 'Loneliness' and the theme is 'How Loneliness can be paralyzing.'

Theme Poem Explanation (Alice 8H)

Be The Change You Want to See In The World by Julie Fisher-McGarry (Foreword by John Robbins) [Published: 2006]

  1. Walking is one of the simplest and safest aerobic form to exercise that benefits your health greatly. People who walk 20-25 miles tends to be healthier and outlive, by several years than those who don't. [Sustainable development goal: Good Health and Well-being]
  2. Nearly a quarter of a million women die of a heart attack in the US every year; that's more than the die rate of cancer. [Sustainable development goal: Good Health and Well-being]
The book I retrieved the information from.
The book I retrieved the information from.

My business resume
My business resume

This semester, before the Food Drive for Anh Linh Love School started, we practiced our English Writing skills by creating a resume for any type of job that we wanted. Above are a screenshot of my resume.

What are my best professional qualities?

I can speak quite fluently across four different languages as well as I'm creative and I can work under (high) pressure/ stress because if I want to be an entrepreneur I will have to work in a tense and ever-changing environment. I'm also quite good at some areas in Math/ Algebra. I can speak English fluently because i have attended and learned in two of the best International schools in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Furthermore, I can think of solutions to problems/ projects that I am involved in; I also learned a variety of words to help with my writing in school.

What are some professional qualities I need to work on?

I understand that working under pressure/ stress isn't healthy, also I will have to revise on one or two of the languages I listed above in the first paragraph of my resume. In addition, I will need to revise more broad-range topics in Math/ Algebra in preparation for the future.

In this project on European's Imperialism in Africa , we focused on learning about what was the primary driving force that led Europeans to conquer the continent and afterwards engaging on our last DBQ of Social Studies Grade 8/ Middle School to finish it off with writing an essay! This is an important skill because it helps me to fully understand how to prepare and write for one because in High School there'll definitely be more long pieces of writing involve.  One thing I improved while working on this project is my ability to analyze the sources/ information in the DBQ packet for backing up my main points. This blog post provides a reflection on my work, as well as a sample of what I accomplished.

Bright spot: I have good evidence.

To work on: Refer more to other docs and the roles of other factors & contradiction of what my claim is.

What trouble did I have and why?

I had some trouble trying to finish up my essay to what I want it to be because for this DBQ, we only need to write ONE main point for the topic reason and not THREE, therefore I got confused and was stuck there trying to figure out what to write. It took away a lot of my time dwindling meaning that I had to rush on some of the counter claim and conclusion parts of my essay. I also felt that for this DBQ packet, we weren't given a lot of time (only a week) to do it and we could only do it in class time, not at home => me rushing on the last moment when it was due 😛 (I admit it was a part of my fault because of not asking for help or actually committed on doing the work!)

My essay:

Before the 19th century, the majority of Europeans knew very little about the interior of Africa because of their vulnerability to atrocious disease such as malaria; that the west coast of Africa from Senegal River to Angola were famously known as ‘the white man’s grave.’ From then on, dreams of being able to finally take over Africa remained in many ambitious European nations mind as imperialism and seizing colonies became the new interest of the time. A notable explorer who pursued this goal was Scotsman Mungo Park who gave his life exploring the Niger River section in West Africa, 1806. The primary driving force of imperialism in Africa was economics because the Europeans in that time period wanted to be rich. On the other hand, technology played a larger role in the imperialization factor more than economics.

First and foremost, the factor of economics made the Europeans wealthier. In Document D, it is shown that in the table ‘Selected African Colonies and Their Exports’ drawn from various other sources; approximately all of European industries at that period of time benefited vastly from African resources found in different colonies. The evidence indicates that using the income created from imperialization, the Europeans exploited it to advance their technology such as guns, medicines and communication system suggested in the Technological Development table in Document C, as well as gaining more national pride as their nation gets more prosperous. In conclusion, influenced by incredible natural riches coming from African colonies; the Europeans took full advantage and utilized the goods therefore augmenting the economic power which upsurge their wealthy state.

It has been argued that technology was the biggest driving force of imperialism in Africa because due to advanced technology, the Europeans were able to easily take over Africa. According to Document C of the table ‘Technology and Imperialism’ also drawn from a variety of sources, it is implied that since the Industrial Revolution ride on the coattails of the Age of Imperialism; it led to many discoveries and inventions that enhanced imperialization of Africa for instance ‘the method of getting quinine from cinchona tree bark’ found in the year 1820 which helped cured the deadly disease malaria, the first ever machine gun ‘Maxim gun’ in 1884 or ‘Repeating rifle’ in the late 1800s, ‘a faster-loading gun that was able to fire multiple shots more accurately than older muskets.’ This example is used to illustrate that the Europeans can used these useful creations to slowly but steadily take over Africa likewise the boat were used as a faster form of transportation to travel over to the colonies or beforehand-planned attacks against the natives if they rebelled; furthermore the malaria medicine aided greatly in Europeans getting cured against the disease which helped explorers travel further into inner Africa.However, without economics there wouldn’t be enough financial support to actually advanced the technology itself or even invented it, therefore the imperialism of Africa might not have gone as “successful” as it would’ve been. In particular, Document D suggested again that the resources exported in African colonies such as in Rhodesia (Great Britain); lead were found which created metal alloys and ammunition to perfected the guns and rifles. Given the evidence, it is therefore logical to conclude that even without technology present; Europeans would still find a way to conquer and take control over Africa. Clearly, economics is the greater motivation to imperialize Africa than technology.

To summarize, economics is a greater factor of the imperialization of Africa than economics because most of the Europeans industrial forces gained a vast amount of income from the colonies and all nations gained more national pride of becoming wealthier. To summarize this, it is clearly stated that it wasn’t technology whom was the driving force of imperialism in Africa, but economics. If their economics are successful, so will their nations as well as other leading factors as well.

Before the Poetry Unit, we had our Persuasive Writing Unit in which we had to write an informal, conversational persuasive piece which would be published online for the public to view and read. I wrote mine on the subject of "judging your child against other peoples". I felt very strongly related to this because I have experienced through that situation a lot of times in my life. Therefore, after I sent it to Teen Ink and a few days passed, an email was sent to me saying that my piece got PUBLISHED!!! (YAYYYY!!! XD) I was really happy and it even got to #No1 ranking in 'Discrimination' and 'Opinion' category of the page!! Also, some viewers were kindly enough to leave a 'Like', 'You've got talent' and 'I can relate' 😀 This was a valuable experience for me to say that I can write a persuasive piece and that it got published!

My Persuasive Writing Piece:
Why Parents Need to Stop Comparing Their Child Toward Others

Screenshots are read from bottom to top 🙂

Rank #1 on Opinion>Discrimination Category (Again!) Rank #1 on Opinion>Discrimination Category Published Piece Email 'Submission on Teen Ink' Email My Writing Piece (Continue) My Writing Piece (Continue) My Writing Piece (Continue) My Writing Piece

We started the Poem unit a few weeks ago. In this unit we learned about the techniques used in making different varieties of poems from various poets/ authors. We then identified and annotated poem examples using what we've learned. Afterwards we wrote our own poem! This is an analysis of the poem I wrote ^^

White Space & Line Breaks Explain Everything

Here's a screenshot of my poem 🙂

My Poem

Just over 2 weeks ago, we started on our Health unit to learn about varieties of nutritious foods and the importance of consuming various elements for a balance meal. We engaged right away on planning the preparations for the final meal which would be presented to another group for them to judge (basically it's kinda similar to Masterchef XD). For our group, we decided on: for the fruits are bananas, watermelons, tomato and avocado (enough for servings of 5); salad with melted cheese on top (for the dairy kinda); small ham and chicken slices, Korean mixed rice with piece of bread and balsamic sauce on top and lastly a small carton of milk. The judges for our dish was Giao's group. Their comments were that they like how we have a lot of fruits and green (vegetables), also the Korean mixed rice was healthy. For their constructive comments they said that the slices of ham and chicken was too dry and the piece of bread was a white bread therefore it's not as healthy as other types such as brown bread. Furthermore, the portion of grain (Korean mixed rice) on our meal was too little and we could have added more. But overall, it was good 🙂

This is our book showing our healthy meal:
Sharing Is Caring Group - Healthy Meal Menu
(Open it using Cloud ePub Reader)

In this project on Enlightenment Thinkers Toy Story Movie Review, we focused on improving/learning about a diversity of enlightenment viewpoints, ideas and thoughts. This is an important skill because we normally use these foundation of opinions everyday when we make choices regarding different situations.  One thing I improved while working on this project is my ability to go in depth when researching about my chosen thinker whom is Niccolo Machiavelli as well as being able to think and percept how he will say what towards the movie. This blog post provides a reflection on my work, as well as a sample of what I accomplished.

Toy Story Movie Review Script (Haryoung & Me)

Toy Story Movie Review Video (Haryoung & Me)

Q: What trouble did I have and why?

A trouble I have faced in this project was to deciphering the information I found online to make it into an easier version for everybody to understand. This is because most of the pages that have info are targeted to an older audience, preferably maybe around university or college students. Therefore I tried my best to pick out the notable parts that I could understand the most, then I applied it to my writing of the script, such as the evidence and my reasons to back it up.