An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth: Part 2

Now that Chris has taken the right steps to be on his way to achieving his goal of becoming an astronaut, he must put in the work. He has the recipe, now he must bake the astro-cookies.

He started by gaining the 1000 necessary hours of jet flying experience he would need to be eligible to be an astronaut. This took time and effort, but he knew there would be more ground to cover to reach his goal. He had to sacrifice time with his new wife to get closer to his goal, but she understood his passion and supported him. He spent months at a time away, just as his father had as an airline pilot. The only difference  was that Chris had an end-goal, while his father only loved to fly planes, and make money doing it.

Once he had enough experience, he took the appropriate measures when attempting to start his career as an astronaut. He knew he would be going up against thousands of other candidates, so he stood out. One scenario he describes in his book is in one of his final interviews. The board of people he had been interviewed always seemed to refer back to one man. They would say “Mac, you want to take this one?” Chris made a quick decision when he was asked a relatively difficult technical question by the board. He answered back sharply “Mac, you want to take this one?” Needless to say, everyone in the room cracked, and his quick thinking may have helped secure his position in the Canadian Space Agency.

Chris Hadfield flew to space 3 times; first in 1995, second in 2001, where he was the first Canadian to walk in space when he helped install the Canadarm2, and for the final time in 2012, where he was became the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station in march 2013. He has showed millions of Canadians that it does not take money or fame to reach your goals. It takes hard work, love, patience and an appreciation for the journey you take to get there.

The commander stated in his book that he loved his 5 month stay aboard the ISS, but he wished he could have been launching and reentering to earth in a spaceship more often. Of course, that is the most exciting part. His entire life, he wanted to reach his goal of going to space, yet here he is IN SPACE, and he says he wishes he could have made the journey to space more often. This in itself is a representation of his whole theory of why it is amazing to be an astronaut. Yes, you get to go to space, but most of your time is spent on the ground, making the journey to that one summit. In order to enjoy what you do, you need to enjoy the journey just as you enjoy where it will lead you.

Marked Blog Post #2: Canada’s Dark History

To Canadians nowadays our country is heaven, but terrors from a hundred years ago all the way to today have been covered up like dirt over a seeds. It is time for those seeds, not few in numbers, to sprout and be seen by the people who’s forefathers created this country. Not to darken the shining light that is this powerful and free country, but to see that shining light for what it really is; factual history.

I too believed that Canada was faultless even though I had knowledge of most of this dark history. I believe this may be the case for many Canadians, as we tend to look down upon other countries, for example the United States, for having current problems affecting their people. Many of the presentations opened my eyes to the problems affecting Canada’s people from today and yesteryear.

All these events, with the exception of the seals, which is just plain animal abuse and the pillaging of their bodies, seem to be related to the fact that Canada claims to be a country made up of people from all different heritages, unified into one multicultural super country, while the reality is that most of the dark history we researched seemed to be white people continuing to take advantage of all smaller minorities.

The first example of this recurring theme is the Chinese railroad workers that were paid terribly and lived through deadly and inhumane conditions while building the Canadian Pacific Railway. We also have the abuse and human trafficking of indigenous women that has been terrorizing the nation unnoticed. My topic was the mistreatment of children through nutrition in residential schools, run by white people of the Catholic, United and Presbyterian churches.

In the creation of my own presentation on the nutrition, or lack thereof, provided to children and the nutrition experiments practiced in residential schools. These schools were meant to save the children from their “savage” lives in the tribes of their first nation’s peoples. They were taught English, dressed like English children, and forced to convert to Christianity. People in Canada may take their nutrition for granted, some are overweight, some eat healthier, but the presence of food at all times is never questioned. For these children had no choice in their food, and the people preparing the food for them were certainly not interested in providing it in a way that would promote growth.

The creative method I chose to use was fairly effective I believe. I used paper cutouts of what the children in residential schools would have eaten, with the nutritional values of each meal on the back. The children were provided enough food to feed a small child of about 7 years old, even though some of them were aged up to about 17 years of age. The pieces of paper with the meals on them also signified how little they could provide for the children, as though their meals were paper thin.

My understanding of the severity of the condition of the children would have been less if we were to only do a research project without any creative section. The size that I made the proportions, quite small, was accurate to the amount of calories that they provided. Not only the preparation of the food was poor and small in diversity, but the provision of food to each residential was minimal, especially since, based on their location, the food would be hard to transport. They needed foods that could be attained easily and cheaply, and could last for a very long time in storage until they were prepared for consumption. Clearly, the dietary benefits of the food was never taken into account.

Another possibility of a creative method to represent my research would be to actually make the food that the children in residential schools had to eat, and bring it into class for my peers to try. I would serve it in equal, accurate proportions to give a sense of how little was provided. The food would be prepared as simply and crudely as I could to show how little consideration would have been had as it would have been difficult to care when you make food in a large pot for 50 people you do not care for. It would be difficult to keep the food warm or reheat it in class for accuracy.

Overall, this research project and creative presentation helped everyone in the class to take a good look at our country and it’s past for what it really is; important history that shows the dark events that every country can have.

 

 

 

Chris Hadfield: An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth

Although Mr. Plewis gave me a copy of James R. Hansen’s book The First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, I decided to read a a book by a fellow Canadian; Chris Hadfield.

This book is  written and lived by the Canadian astronaut, born on August 29th, 1959 in Sarnia, Ontario. He was raised on a farm like his parents were, they knew such an upbringing would provide their kids with a sense of responsibility and strength. His father, Roger Hadfield, was a commercial airline pilot, and his mother, Eleanor, took care of Chris, his brother and his sisters. No doubt Chris’ interest in flying was sparked by the career of his father.

Chris first knew he wanted to be an astronaut at the age of nine, when he saw the Apollo 11 moon landing on TV. He set out to make every decision based off how it would help to him to accomplish his goal of one day soaring through our atmosphere to the beyond. There was only one problem; Canada did not have a space agency at the time, and NASA only accepted American citizens. He never let that dampen his spirits, though, and he went through his schooling trying to push himself to do his absolute best. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Cadets in his young teenage years, which showed him the ropes of respect, discipline and exposed him to the world of the sky. He earned his glider license at the age of 15, and at 16, he started flying powered airplanes.

Seen above: Chris Hadfield and his brother David in their Air Cadets uniforms.

After high school, Chris went to military college to major in mechanical engineering, and also because a direct path to becoming an astronaut was usually joining the military. If he didn’t become an astronaut, he would at least have an education. One major event that took place before his graduation was his marriage to his high school sweetheart, Helene.

This book lays out the recipe to become an astronaut.

First of all, a good upbringing is fairly important. One that brings out the best attributes for a human is needed. An astronaut needs to be responsible, to be able to resolve all problems during study, launch, orbit, reentry, and debriefing. They need to be able to call not only themselves out, but also others, politely and practically, for faults made during simulations. This is critical to avoid any seriously consequential mistakes made in space.

Next is the idea of committing your life to a single goal being deployed at a young age. The path to the deep, dark unknown is a lifelong one, and nobody is getting there without sacrifice. Chris knew his goal from childhood, and had inspiration and drive enough to get him to his goal in just over 26 years. His first contact with his inspiration being the Apollo 11 lunar landing on July 20th, 1969, and his first mission to space being on November 12th, 1996.

The third step is to gain experience in flight from a young age. Chris knew that to fly, the first step was to start training young. He joined the Air Cadets and started his journey to flying a real plane. He earned his licenses, and spent as much time as he could off the ground.

Fourthly is a good education, a fair bet to the start of any successful career. The commander had no way of knowing for sure if his dream would ever come true, but he still knew that he had to provide himself the best chance possible for success in life either way.

Finally, maybe the most important ingredient for any life recipe, is love. Chris attributes all of his success to the unconditional love from his wife. He was lucky to meet “the one” from a young age and marry her before his true challenges showed themselves. One particularly significant line from his book talks about how “During (their) first two years of wedded bliss, (Chris and his wife) were apart for almost 18 months.” This just shows how much dedication is needed to your significant other, and how much time will be spent apart from them on their pathway to space.

Not all these steps have been taken by every astronaut, but I can assure you that to reach your goals, an invisible pathway is laid out ahead of you, and your own recipe of decisions must be made to reach the desired finish line. Chris Hadfield, the most important Canadian astronaut, with the exception of Roberta Bondar, of course, made his way carefully and calculatedly down his pathway to the best of his abilities and to the lengths of what any human could.

 

Chris Hadfield’s Appmazing Social Media

Chris Hadfield took to twitter in 2010, according to his account @Cmdr_Hadfield. He likes to post photos and videos of interesting up and coming science and technology projects that he wants to shed more light on, increasing their popularity and funding.

For example, he is happy to share a picture of an air cadet squadron that was named after him. First of all, he is honoured to have anything named after him, and second of all, he was an air cadet. His entire career started when he joined the air cadets. He learned discipline, organization, and how to fly a plane.

He most recently replied to a tweet about some young scientists that created a science project to reduce environmental noise and sound using inverted waves. In their tweet, they thanked Chris for talking to them about their project and for saying they had made a real solution to a real problem. He wished them luck at the science competition that they were entered in. This involvement in the young scientific community shows his commitment to helping grow minds for future development of all categories of research and exploration.

I found a photo that he posted of himself and Paul Henderson, and I thought it was slightly ironic/representative of many people and Chris. He wrote that “Meeting your heroes is a thrill. Paul Henderson scored the winning goals in games 6, 7 & 8 during the 1972 Canada-USSR Summit Series. My school was shut down to watch. He signed my jersey 🙂 Thanks Paul!” He is very excited to meet Paul because he looked up to him as a kid and wanted to have success just like him. In addition, he has tremendously proud of his Canadian heritage and just as Paul Henderson was a beacon of Canadian success, Chris is a mirror of a great Canadian for younger ones to look up to. I’m sure many people would be excited and proud to get a picture with Chris Hadfield and would like to thank him for being their inspiration.

When a Soyuz rocket failed during launch as 4 side boosters were being jettisoned, Chris took to twitter to offer his input and to answer questions. He started off by making a tweet saying that the crew was OK, and that all systems designed to ensure that was the case when there is an abort mission worked perfectly. He knew that as an experienced astronaut with a decent following, people would be looking to him for answers. He followed this by using the periscope app to film a 14 minute video of him answering questions that people had asked him from his last post. In this video he covered everything from what went wrong to how this failure would effect future missions. He finished off the posting about this event by sharing a video of the failure mid-flight, and by sharing a video of the astronauts seeing their families for the first time after the abort. Chris was able to provide news and insight for those that were worried or interested, even though the flight took place in a different country and with a different space agency.

Overall, Chris Hadfield is an experienced and educated person that uses twitter and all social media not only for his personal life and interests, but also to cover all topics of his field and provide interesting and pertinent information for space-exploration enthusiasts.

Hamlet: Then and Now

The author of this piece really seems to like using huge words, which is nice. I guess this either comes from the fact that he likes to seem scholarly or the fact that the guy he is talking about uses some big, confusing words; William Shakespeare. The thesis of this article seems to be that Shakespeare’s plays hold deep meaning and components that apply to any and all moments in time and can help to show us, better than any other, what life was like, mentally and physically, back in the time he was alive.

After having read two of Shakespeare’s plays, last year and this year, I can agree with Rhodri Lewis on the topic of Shakespeare’s use of in depth psychological analysis and mental illness representation. He used mental illness in both Macbeth and Hamlet, the two that I have read, both as a main point of the conflict/story line and as a view into how the human mind can work and play a huge role in history. An example of this is how Mr. Plewis talked about the royals being the first ones to have indoor plumbing, using lead pipes. With a side effect of lead-poisoning being insanity, this shows how the royals would be running the country while being mentally unfit to do so.

A critical theory that Shakespeare represents well is the post-colonialism theory that is described in the play as Hamlet dealing with his own problems while everyone else tries to maintain Denmark’s power. Post-colonialism is the analysis of effects that a country has on it’s colonies, which has a parallel to the effects that Hamlet has on everyone around him. This idea can be universal as we can see that your actions can effect those around you directly. Hamlet has either a real mental illness or a conjured one that puts all those around him on edge. After a while, Ophelia becomes mentally sick aswell, possibly as a direct result of her seeing her beloved Hamlet in such a bad state. She could have also conjured her mental illness, to line up with Hamlet’s plan to possibly have a way of escaping real consideration as a candidate to kill Claudius and take the throne as revenge.

We can see the effects that countries have on their colonies still to this day, in the form of an Indian version of the Hamlet story, all the way to an extreme, First Nation’s people’s continuous struggles after being killed and having their lands robbed from them when England and France came to North America to widen their global control.

Another currently-applicable critical theory that Shakespeare shows us is the feminist/gender theory. Shakespeare’s stories of course demonstrate the characteristics of women that were possibly true back then; women being frail, meant for having children and taking care of the home, less of the second one in the case of royal women such as Ophelia and Gertrude. These types of stereotypes are still alive today, and are sometimes true, but it is interesting how most women, especially in films and book with a male main character, are painted in the same light that the women in Shakespeare’s works were. This shows how, whether on purpose or not, Shakespeare helped to put in place the attributes that fictional women would be based off up until our times today. Nowadays, media tries harder to equalize the prominence of bravery and other heroic attributes in both men and women.

The study of Hamlet is beneficial in 2018 because it shows how similar events in our lives are to those that happened a long time ago, and gives everything that happens to us a sense of normality. An example of this is the fact that these days, mental illness is very common. In the play, mental illness of many characters is what is analyzed the most, and it seems to be the driving factor for the entire storyline. Shakespeare includes this to show that everyone can suffer from mental illness, even royals. This shows that we the recent uprise in the amount of mental illness that we hear about is not because of a recent factor, but that it has always been present. Only recently have people felt comfortable talking about their own struggle, and Hamlet’s bravery to wriyte about these struggles even back then just shows how much of a pioneer for literature in his time he was.

Chris Hadfield’s Instaglamorous Social Media

Col. Chris Hadfield flew into the greatest enigma in history, space, in 2012. A little less great was his flight into Instagram in 2014. Social media connection from anyone to Chris Hadfield is a good thing. He certainly is active on the app, posting scientific and personal pictures and thoughts as well as documenting his life as an astronaut.

Chris posts a lot of pictures involving old astronauts and scientists, showing how he treasures the history of the science that he loves. Many of the astronauts that he looked up to are passed away, and so he must take the reins and be an astronaut that a new, younger generation can be inspired by. This also explains why he would want to get social media in the first place, as all the kids use it nowadays.

The retired astronaut also enjoys posting pictures from his own past. He must like to remember the good old days of when he knew he wanted to be an astronaut, just like every other little boy did after seeing the moon landing. He was serious, though, and he had it all planned out, how to get to space. One particular picture shows him as a small child with a typical metal pot on his head. The caption says “My 1st Halloween costume was… underwhelming.” The classic subconscious or not, childhood astronaut costume of the pot on the head. He knows it. The pot knows it. Its all about to go down, well, over the next 55 years that is. Astronaut Chris here he comes.

Much like Newton’s laws of motion, and how Newton acclaims them and his success to previous revolutionary scientists for creating the base equations and making the tough discoveries in order for newer minds to advance, I suspect that Mr. Hadfield and all other scientists feel the same about their predecessors.

Chris’ Instagram shows how he is deeply proud of his Canadian heritage. He posts content about the Toronto Maple Leafs, hockey, interesting facts and maps. He was the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station, and he might not have had the drive to become who he is if he had not been a great white norther. The fact that he says he wanted to be an astronaut even before there was any talk of a Canadian space agency shows that he wanted to be a ground breaker for Canada’s involvement in the exploration of space.

Chris Hadfield is clearly all about major throwbacks and thanking those that helped in any way to not only help him advance in his life and career, but those that helped anyone to have a better life. He uses his popularity power for good by shouting out those that deserve it and sharing his stories to help boost others to do better, to reach their dreams to infinity and beyond.

 

First micro English presentation: psychoanalytic!

After completing the first of many small English projects, my view into the world of Mr. Plewis’ teaching strategies has been expanded. The group format, the discussion and the idea sharing helped my understanding greatly, and I have several things to focus on for the next time we have another presentation like this.

First of all, the group to group presentation format worked very well for me. The ability to work cooperatively on an info graphic helped understanding of the content and helped to create a better quality piece of media than if it had all been done individually. Since marking work as a whole group is difficult, the idea to split the groups up and form new groups made of a single member of each type of literary criticism was pure genius, I must say. This format helped form a super group of understanding, with each person being able to demonstrate their understanding of their particular topic, everyone could ask questions and talk about their point of view of the story’s meanings.

For the next presentation of the same format, I could focus more on the written part of my particular segment. I tend to focus more on the visuals, attempting to make them as pleasing as possible, and trying to match pictures to meanings as best I can. This looks good, but if the linguistic substance is not there, the presentation lacks. When I presented my infographic, I did not read my written document, I was able to speak about the information visually represented from memory.

I found that some of my group members were more enthusiastic than others, and this enthusiasm really helped to capture everyone’s attention. It shows that the work done was with enthusiasm to actually learn, which can be difficult for many people. Being engaged is an important part of information retention for most.

Going forward, the essay on a short story analyzed through the lens of a literary criticism is coming up. I will be glad that I took notes on each of the presentations I was given. I can use this information to prepare myself for the essay by reading and rereading the short stories given to us through each different literary criticism.

I don’t think I will be picking the literary criticism that my group was chosen to study when we start our essays next Tuesday. Psychological criticism, or psychoanalysis, can be difficult to apply to stories because it takes inference into a character’s mind, and not just a character’s actions. I can imagine that not many other people will pick this literary criticism as it could be difficult to pick up from only one presentation. You might pick this only if you had done research to have a deeper understanding of how to apply it to all situations, whether it be selfishness, to bravery, to loss.

Certainly and interesting topic, literary criticism may be a skill that many of us students already had, but hadn’t been taught to identify individually and to use effectively.

 

Reaction to articles: Learning affected!?

Two short articles can help more than you think. The fact that they are short helps everyone by letting them know that the information they are about to be given has been condensed and will be straight to the point. They’ll also not be spending 20 minutes trying to understand every little word, but more likely be done in time to still be interested and not have drifted off into the “sorry, I wasn’t paying attention. Let me read that again” phase.

The first article, “Write Less, Say More: The Power of Brevity”, talks about how you don’t need to write a million word essay or sentence, or use big words, to seem smart. All you need is enough words to get your point across effectively. If your sentence can have words removed and still make sense, there is a good chance that you’re only using those words subliminally as fillers to make your writing seem longer to meet length requirements for your teacher. For example, the sentence “ I only went to the store to buy six or so cartons of eggs for my awesome grandma because she had wanted to ask me to for such a long time.” Can he changed to “I went to the store to buy six cartons of eggs because my grandma wanted me to.” This short article will help me by reminding my mind that not every word counts. Some can be changed or removed, some need to stay to make the idea work. Already I feel this article is etched into my brain, as if I always knew of the idea that I wrote in a style to please my teachers, but I needed something to tell me I didn’t have to anymore.

“Let’s Bury the 5-Paragraph Essay: Long Live Authentic Writing”, the second article, tells how the long taught strategy of organizing ideas by paragraph and how they must each be structured by topic sentence, point and example, and conclusion, is not authentic writing. Authentic means of undisputed origin. I’m sure we know that it is disputed, where most of our essay ideas and layouts came from. Teachers teach everyone how to write the same way, but to be authentic we must now learn to write in our own way. Writing is an art form, there is no right or wrong way to do it, it is always going to be writing. This idea will help me start to write in a way that I can agree with and everyone else can get meaning from.

If we all write the same, how can we learn from not only the teacher, who must write this way to be able to teach us, but from each other. Our peers can be a source of learning on a level of connection that no adult can reach.

First Post! Three comments on my report card.

I hope to see three positive comments on my report card. If not, I’ll settle for constructive comments that can help me boost my productivity and mark. I expect to see three comments such as; works well with others, uses class time efficiently and hopefully is good at writing good. I honestly can’t even remember if I took English class last semester or the one before, but I know I did decent, so I am hopeful for this class and I’ll try my best.

The first of three comments that I expect on my report card is one saying that I work well in groups. Yes, it seems that we will not be doing any group work for a while, writing our own blog posts, but if we do end up collaborating, I think I’ll be good at it. I’m outgoing, so I will make the people around me feel more comfortable and less afraid to talk about their ideas. This is evident from my personality, as I talk to people I don’y know and make their awkward acquaintance not too awkwardly. If I learned anything from peaking in grade 5, it’s that I can in fact connect with people, as long as I say something stupid to make them laugh within the first thirty seconds.

The second comment I hope to see is one saying that I use my time in class to my advantage, and I don’t sit in my chair and yap (like someone I know says he does). There’s nothing worse than a baby crying on an airplane, just like there’s nothing worse than a student that won’t zip their lip in class. I hope to never be that person, as well as I hope to zip the lip of the person that is disrupting our class. When I write I tend to be fairly quiet, because all the talking is obviously going on in my head and going down onto the blog post. I also like to listen to music when I write, so that should do a good job of shutting out any exterior noise. A day will come when I get caught in a conversation about the hockey game last night, or the dumb new app that i’m addicted to, but I will try to keep it short and sweet.

Finally, I hope to see a comment on my midterm report card telling me that I have decent to mad skills at writing. I can write quickly and fluidly, however, like most people, I don’t spew the most quality things onto the page at all times. As time goes on in this course, I hope to hone my ability to only include important and strong ideas, as to convey my points more effectively.

In conclusion, yes, I hope to continue my medium amount of excellence in the class of English as I have had in the past. If my attempt at this blog post is acceptable, I suspect this whole blog thing will go on to improve my writing.

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton