perception is everything

The theme of this video is that what we see isn't always real. Our brains get manipulated based on what we are trained to see and what we have seen in the past. For instance, there could be two different people in the same room. They have had different lives and are obviously different people. The room could look entirely different to those people even though it is exactly the same. This is because these people have had different life experiences, they were brought up differently and even thier eyes just see things differently. looking around the room thier eyes pick up different objects and leave others out, even the colours they see are different and things are seen in different context. I have experienced this when looking at some optical illusions. The ones where if you look at a seemingly random pattern a certain way and you are supposed to see the 3D image in front of it. Some people are able to do this and some people arn't. I personally have never seen the image! Optical illusions and tricks of the light surround us continually, our brains just interpret them the way it has made sense to in the past. The question this video is asking is how do we know if what we are seeing is real or not?

21st century education

The most important skills needed for post highschool life I believe are communication, social skills and the abilitiy to make important decisions. I think our school systems are very structured however do allow for some creativity. In Elemetary school the children are socialized well and have creative projects allowing them to start picking up important life skills. There is not alot of decision making though. Up until grade 10 there really isnt much choice in the classes you take besides choosing woodworks vs. textiles. I think from grade 9 on we should have had much more freedom to choose courses, to explore and decide what we want to do for our careers. As I have not decided myself, I will be taking a year to work and think about it. I wouldnt want to go off to university and decide that I'm not interested in the courses I took, that would be a waste of alot of money.

worst thing i have ever eaten-creative pursuits

I walked in the house to encounter the pungent smell of seafood wafting through my nose so strongly i could taste the saltiness of it. There are certain foods that are delicious on their own but were never meant to be mixed. Shrimp and pizza are perfect examples of that. I look in the oven to see what this awful smell was coming from and I see it sitting there. It looked like a normal pizza at first, this puzzled me. No ordinary pizza could smell like that. I looked at it closer. Still pretty normal, I saw a few shrimp innocently laying there on top of the bubbling cheese. "Oh that will be pretty good" I thought to myself. But what I didn't see was laying hidden beneath the cheese. On my first bite I instantly took back the thought I had earlier and replaced it with "how on earth would my mother hate me so much to let me put this in my mouth!" The wretched taste of 100 uneccessary onions swirled around my taste buds. I now felt sick to my stomache. Some water had gushed out of the shrimp causing little pools on top that dripped down as you ate. Once i got past the shock of onion I began to notice the sauce. This was like no ordinary pizza sauce. It had clams in it along with more onions and there was just so much of it! The sheer excess of seafood and sauce had caused the crust on the bottom to become so floppy you had to use both hands underneath to keep  it up. That is if you could bear to continue eating it, which I no longer could do.

Walk a paragraph assignment

The cool dampness of the earth underneath me felt nice on this warm sunny afternoon. I lay there thinking about absolutely nothing, which was nice for a change. I was at peace. I open my eyes to see her walking across the field towards me, although her walk looks more like a graceful dance. As she came closer all I wanted to do was see her face again. However I knew this wouldn’t happen. Every night I have this dream and I knew when it was going to end. Just as she was coming into focus I could hear in the background the strange, but familiar sounding buzz of my alarm. Everything went hazy and then I was awakened back into reality, alone in my bed with my heart rate elevated slightly. My dark apartment still smells of the fish I had for dinner last night. I lay there for a bit to calm myself before I get ready to face another day full of the reminders that my wife was no longer alive. Eventually I sluggishly pull back the blankets and step out of bed causing the old floors to creak, surely annoying Mrs. Hemles downstairs. After showering I didn’t bother to do anything to my hair since I was going to get it cut this morning. I pulled on my old blue jeans and a T-shirt, stepped into my runners and put on my old green jacket that smells of the mints I keep in the pocket for my grandchildren. I should really think about replacing it sometime in the near future. On my way out the door I say goodbye to my best friend. He is my very old German shepherd named Sam. I take a quick look in the mirror and then I wish that I hadn’t. I hate seeing the wrinkled face that greets me instead of the quite handsome one that I would have seen a number of years ago. Well, no sense wishing for the past when I still have the future to look forward to I tell myself. I step out in to the crisp winter morning and drive to the small building full of pointless stores that my small town calls a mall. I’m a bit early and I have about 20 minutes until anything opens. It’s amazing how slow time goes when wandering alone in the mall. A group of teenagers pass me carrying binders and papers following some person, how does he not notice that they are following him? I am now standing in front of my hair salon, they are getting close to opening. I love being their first customer, when you come early there isn’t very many people there and they are more personal. Its nice to talk to people for a change. I mean Sams great because he just listens to everything I have to say but getting a reply back is the great thing that I miss about talking to people. I probably don’t need to get my hair cut twice a month but its an outing that I greatly look foreword to. My hair dresser came around to open the doors and greeted me with a huge smile and said “hello James! It’s good to see you.” That there makes this trip worthwhile.