Grade 11 Academic Reflection

Grade 11 is a very intensive year to me. I didn't make a very wise choice when I did my course selection by choosing AP European History, because history is my weakest spot. I was going to take AP Calculus AB, but it couldn't fit into my schedule, so I ended up taking it at an academy. The good thing is that I found AP Economics easy, which alleviated some pressure on me.

The class that cost most of my time this year is AP European History. This course has a very heavy homework load and intensive readings. Despite the fact that I spent a lont time studying for this course, I didn't manage to get an A. But my mark did improve a lot from the beginning of the year. The other challenge is Law 12. Although Mr. McDonald's classes are very enjoyable and funny, his ten-page-long quizes are not very easy to handle. But considering the little amount of work that we do in law, it's a very  easy credit.

Chemistry and physics are the easiest courses to me this year. I enjoy doing labs and experiments, and feel especially exited when I'm able to figure out how to solve some difficult questions. But my favorite course is still Economics. Ms. Karcz is a very good and encouraging teacher, and I feel very lucky to have her because I learnt a lot from her indeed. I also showed some improvement in English this year. Most of the essays I wrote got As, and the speech this year was so much better than last year. And my English teacher, Mr. Streit, is much nicer than how he seems to be. I respect him because he is a very responsible teacher.

My goal this year was to maintain an A in all the subjects, maybe with the exception of European History. I'm very glad that I got the School Color Academics for this year. I consider this academic year very productive and efficient.

Grade 11 AP Microeconomics Research Paper

Academics #1

One academic achievement that I'm very proud of this year is the Microeconomics research paper on "social business". Social business is a new way of doing business, which focus on solving social issues rather than making profit. Because this new concept had brought up a lot of debate and argument, Ms. Karcz wanted us to do some research and decide whether it's an utopia or a future way of doing business. I decided to read some books by Muhammad Yunus, the developer of this new concept, and learnt a lot about business through these books. Although the research took much effort and time, the knowledge that I got from the process is well worth it. Because it was my first time writing a research paper, I had some problem doing the in-text citation, which cost me five marks. But I still got a 90% on the project which I'm generally satisfied with.

Grade 11 Candy Pastel Drawing

Choice #1

The candy pastel drawing is a really interesting project, because oil pastel is not the tool that I would normally choose to use. I always thought that oil pastel is one of the little kids' toys, and is very hard to be used to create a realistic drawing. But apparently I was wrong because the project turned out great. 

I chose some warm colours with the contrast of green, and made this drawing very colourful, because I think that's what candies are supposed to be. The hard part of this project is to recreate the texture of different candies, especially the green crystal-like candy. The other challenge was the shadow, because it's hard to mix colours together with pastel. But to my surprise, I finished this project in a relatively short time, and the drawing ended up getting into the St. George Art Show. In the future I still would not use pastel if I have a choice because pastels can be very messy when they melt all over my hands and sleeves. But this drawing was an interesting experiment of different drawing tools.