Monday, May 21, 2012

Borrowing Moola(:

    image by 401K
     
           In my 21st century class today, we watched two videos about loans and borrowing money. The first video was telling us that there are different plans we can use to help pay off any loans we might have. There is something called APR (annual percentage rate) which is like the interest you have to pay the bank for borrowing you money. There is multiple plans that have to do with how long it will take you to pay your loan off and your APR. Something that works for your friend, may not work for you. The 2nd video was a cartoon about a college boy who spends lots of money on things like an iPad and a TV. He goes way into debt, but realizes that he can get out if he comes up with a plan. In the end he does, and this helps him to buy a house. Planning ahead can also help us out!

Thursday, May 3, 2012

ELC

 The girls in group B on a hike!

      Last week, my class took a trip to ELC , an environmental learning center. It was the best-est thing EVER. We left on Monday morning at 5a.m.! My dad actually was one of our chaperones, so it was cool to have him there with me! Throughout the week we participated in many activities: every day we had 3 classes. My favorite was probably rock climbing. We did this on Friday. There was a huge rock wall, with 6 areas to climb. The hardest one had a goat at the top; the instructor told us to kiss it if we made it up there.(: This was different then any other rock climbing I've done, because it was actually legit and didn't have made handles for you to grab on to. First, we had to learn how to belay for someone else and pass the belaying test. After that our instructor gave us tips on how to climb. We started climbing, but the time went by really quickly....I only had the chance to try 3 of the areas on the wall, but I made it to the top on all of them! Some of my other favorite activities were the ropes course, participating in my class' polar plunge (BRRRRR.), stream study (I caught a tiny crayfish and named it Liam! :D), and FIRST games (team building activities!). I'm really sad to be back, because I really feel like it was an awesome opportunity and experience for my grade. I also think that we all bonded a lot over the week, and it was cool to really recognize how many friends I really can trust in my class! I wish I could go again.(:

What is Work?



     image by Daehyun Park



     When it comes to thinking ahead about what I want to do after college, I haven't really thought about it too much. I feel like I still have a lot to learn before I can really decide that. Although, right now I really like music, but I don't really know what I could do with that. I guess if I really think out of the box my dream job would be something big, like a singer or actress, but I'm not really counting on either of those happening.(: When I think of work, I don't always think of something that's enjoyable or fun. People don't always do work that they enjoy to do; they just work, because they need the extra money. People also do not have to be paid for the work they are doing. Think of volunteers; they work very hard to help out the community, but they don't get paid at all. I think that work inside of school, is different from the work we will do outside of school. Our school work is to prepare us for the work we will do later in life. Also, the work we do in school is just given to us, on a worksheet or from a book. When we have a real job, things won't be like that. Here's my last point. In school we learn the basics like Math, Science, English, and History, but if you really explore different careers, there is thousands of things that don't always apply to these subjects. Therefore there's way more options.