Food Drive

On the 24th I, along with a couple of other classmates, are going to be collecting food bank donations door to door. Already, Patrick and I have made a poster for the food drive and we may possibly be going to help hang them up. Hopefully, this experience will be enlightening to the needs of those who go hungry in our town.

Battle of the Books

This past Tuesday a fellow classmate and i competed in battle of the books. Our book was called "Before I Die" and even though we didn't win; i think  we had some very good arguments and perhaps if we hadn't been up against the always loved "Paper Bag Princess" we might have won. To prepare we researched the question what is a classic? because the topic of the debate was what book would become a classic in 100 years. So, we started with that and then using the guidelines we found (stuff about the ability to relate and timeless themes) we connected it to our book. We also made a video about our book so that the audience would know vaguely what our book was about. I'll post it at the bottom of this post. During the actual debate we took my laptop up and typed our game plan and discussed our defense arguments  which worked really well because the other team had to whisper (which of course allowed everyone to hear their arguments . Even though we ultimately lost, i think my debating skills have improved from this experience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vz6TVLLRzE

Retraction

So, i previously stated that i am a plant expert. However, this is not the case. So, i would like to do a retraction and clarify that i am not a plant expert, but merely a plant enthusiast. The reason why i am retracting the aforementioned comment is because i over watered a few of my plants and therefore can not be considered one. In other news my forget-me-nots came up!!!!

Jessica: Plant Expert

So, over the long weekend instead of studying i decided to make up a plant book with all the info we need about the plants we are and will be taking care of. I completely filled out the first 8 pages which are my own plants and then i left the rest blank (with just a page title) so that the others can fill out some pages too! This way we can keep straight how often the plants need to be watered or pruned and when they're supposed to sprout etc. I think this will be a great way to not only record our progress throughout CAS, but also a way to record what we've learned about each plant and what works better which we can either keep for the rest of our lives or pass on to the next generation of IB growers. Here are a few pictures of it. Please ignore the bad lighting, poor quality and the creepy face i'm making.

Also, my mom gave me a pinot gris grape vine and i love it. Here's a picture

CONGRATS ON SHAD!!!

I know this isn't about my CAS, but i just wanted to congratulate Emily, Victoria and Adrian on getting into Shad Valley. I'm so proud of you guys <3. Aid is going to Laval, Em to U of S and Tori to U of C. Congrats you guys i believe in you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK_70V7AWvc

An Actual Update: The Lobby Garden and Greenhouse

Yes. I know. Lately my posts have become shorter and shorter an honestly, pretty bad. I guess i just hit that wall. However, I've just scraped myself off that wall and i'm about to become the worlds best CAS blogger. Well, maybe. So, anyway, the garden project has had its ups and downs, but i think everything is on its way to be being great. The tree looks so much better (it's growing new leaves!) and everything is clean (no garbage, or at least very little!) and soon we should be able to try and fix up the water damaged and to be frank somewhat dangerous wall (the paint chips stick out and scrape you has you walk by). Also, some other people taking part in the project decided to put a bucket filled with water in it, and people have started to throw money into it, which is far better than the garbage they used to. However, i'm not totally sure what we're going to do with the money because i honestly doubt we're going to make enough to buy more than a couple packets of seeds. Maybe we can donate it to some charity, like put a little (waterproof) sign up that says "all will be donated to <insert charity here>". It would probably count for extra service. We could choose a charity that our school participates in too (like Easter Seals or something) and then just put our part in, but with things like these it means we have a time limit and i don't know if we'd make more than a couple dollars. So, we could always choose our own charity an just donate it to them in June. I'm not sure, i'll bring it up with the group sometime next week. Here are some before and after pictures of the garden just to show the improvement.

Also, Adrian dug up one of the plants that was barely surviving in the garden and transplanted it to the greenhouse where hopefully we can bring back to life. The greenhouse has become one of my favourite places; it's just so relaxing and warm and bright and despite it being a structure completely made out of windows you never feel like you're being judged because you're just there with your friends and nobody else cares. However, the greenhouse has its own problems. For example, there are about 8 (?) leaks in the ceiling and with all the rain and melting snow it's almost constantly dripping. It rips onto the tables and rots the untreated wood, plus it makes the floor slippery and muddy (which forces us to clean it EVERY day) and the drips follow some of the metal and almost a 90 degree angle and rusts it and then it drips on to the treated wood which is getting damaged despite being treated. To deal with this problem we put a whole bunch of buckets to catch the water which we then use to water the plants, however there is so much water that the buckets tend to overflow. We're trying not to waste perfectly good water, but honestly the greenhouse needs to be fixed. Apparently, it's unable to be fixed, but it's likely just too expensive or difficult. Along with the water problem, since there's no botany class this year the school has piled chairs and desks in it as extra storage and it's somewhat difficult to move around in if there's more than like 3 people. Now, on a better note we've gone planting crazy, which you can likely tell by the video i just posted. I have only had a chance to plant some black eyed Susans that i named Wanda, however everyone else planted  geraniums, some basil, zinnias, snow peas, hot peppers, normal peppers, thyme, coriander and fenugreek. Plus, Adrian brought in a pineapple plant and lets just say i really want a pineapple. Anyway, i'm hoping to plant some forget me nots, some mint and maybe some stevia!

A Video: Lobby Garden Project