Cracking the Code

I think everyone should learn to code at least once in their life. You don't have to learn code as of now but it would benefit you a lot in life. Now that the world is revolving, and technology is advancing, we need to learn about the new world so we don't get left in  the dust. More and more jobs are involving coding and computers, and anyone who doesn't know how to operate a computer will be left without a job not knowing what to do. There is this really cool coding program our teacher showed us, and at the very end you get a special certificate and a basic knowledge on coding. The program is basically a game and it's really fun! Can you crack the code in less than an hour?

I aways liked coding, I found it to be a language within its own that you could use any language to access. My first experience with code was last year in my science teacher Ms. Bandsma's class. It was the same program as this class and another one called code combat. I thought it was really fun because we got to play around in the class and have a great time! At first it was difficult because at the time I couldn't think outside the box as well as I can now.

If I could design any program or game I would get really creative. First of all, I would want it to be an app because then people could play it anywhere. I would base it off a game game called Anger of Stick. In my game you would be a stick figure running. I'm so original right? In my game, though, you could run, walk, slide, jump, punch, pick up weapons and use them. The plot behind it is you are a spy during World War 2 and you were captured, but you escaped, and you want to get back home. Soldiers are firing guns at you and you have to jump and slide to dodge them. You have a hunger bar so sometimes you would have to walk to regain hunger. I think I want my game to be leveled, so there would be fifty levels (one for each state in the United States) continuously getting harder. All in all I just really think it would be fun just to design a game! Leave a comment below and tell me what game you would design and check out my classmates blogs and see what they said!

My Humorous Monologue

WeinerH_Comedy from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

These were the results for my video

Okay, first of all HERE IS MY VIDEO CHECK IT OUT, and my joke plan is at the bottom but I didn't use all of the jokes. I also didn't include my list of what shots I was going to use so you guys can check it out for yourself! We are doing the comedy monologue project and I have learned a lot from it. For instance I have learned that I am a very big procrastinator. I still got my work done on time, but I admit I didn't do everything I could have done. I also learned that checking out a camera early is crucial in this project. In our class we have a camera sign out station, where we can check out cameras to do our projects. Without the early camera you have to rush to do your project, and me being a procrastinator, can't do that. Another thing I learned was, that it's really hard to come up with visual shots for comedy, and ever harder to film the shots without making them look awkward. Well, one of my shots was about being awkward, but that one wasn't awkward! Well I tried to make it awkward.

We learned a term this year called padding. Padding is when you add around five seconds before you do anything in your video. So, if you were recording a humorous monologue script before you say anything wait about five seconds so if you want to have silence for the first three seconds you have it. (Hmm wonder where I got the idea of a humorous monologue?) You also need to leave padding so that parts of your speech doesn't get cut off, incase the camera man starts the recording after you start speaking. For example if you said "I like fluffy bunnies", without padding it would probably sound something similar to this "like fluffy bun" and I don't think your intentions were to compare anything to a fluffy bun. Over all I think padding is a simple task to make your life easier and editing even easier.

Here are the project requirements!!!

Yes!! 4/4

I think my best strength is making it bad. I know that might sound funny, but today I had two people walk up to me and watch my comedic monologue and say "Hahahahah it's so bad that it's funny". I tried to make it funny, but it was turning out really bad, so I just rolled with it and made it even worse. I don't mean worse as in nothing there but just voice overs, I mean worse as in it looks like a bad editing job, cheesy jokes and really corny visuals. For example I had a scene that had the joke "Doesn't everyone love computers, hackable, glitchy, ruin your eyes computers?" and I had a video of my looking at a computer, slowly turning around with cross-eyes. So, I took a small clip off of it and made it have a black and white effect so it flashed a black and white image for a second. So, if you are reading this right now and have not watched my video but planning on watching, and get scared easily, watch out. My weakness would be that once I have the camera I don't know what to do with it. I don't know what shots to do or what angles to get.

Comedy Writing

We now have to make a comedic monologue in our class, but first let me tell you what a sense of humor is. A sense of humor, in my opinion, is the most important character trait. Whenever you are feeling down and someone tells you a funny joke, you just can't help but start laughing. A laugh can bond together random strangers, or lighten the mood in a really tense situation. If we didn't have a sense of humor as people then, yes we would work a lot more efficient, but we wouldn't know how to enjoy ourselves. We wouldn't know how to have fun and "joke around", literally. Well I guess if you were born into that world you wouldn't know about laughter or humor, unless you were in one of those movies where you were traveling through different dimensions. Then, you would have to find a world with humor and laughter. Anyway, it would just be depressing if you were born into a world without laughter.

Five tips for writing a humorous narrative are, creating original jokes, choosing the right expression for the joke, timing, how you tell it and being yourself. Creating original jokes is the best tip someone could give you because you never ever want to tell a joke that's already been told. Choosing the right expression can get difficult at some jokes so establish the mood first, then make a funny face relating to the jokes mood. Timing can also be difficult, but just try to string up jokes that have something in common. You can also tell the joke in a funny voice to make it go from funny to hilarious! Lastly, just be yourself because no one likes a try hard in general, but if you don't try it all the joke might fall short.

My comedic monologue ranges from bad puns, to "sophisticated" jokes. My monologue is all about an everyday life of something, whether it be man, muffin, baseball or baseball mitt. In this project you could choose whether you did a whole comedic story or a lot of little one liner. As you can see I went for the one liners, mainly because I have no good stories to tell. If you do comment down below, I'm always in the mood for a good laugh. Here is my monologue!:

So, one day I met two muffins who were best friends, they could talk to each other, and they agreed with each other! So one day they were hungry and the first muffin said “I’m hungry where should we eat?” and the second muffin said “I know, Starbucks!” So, they were eating at starbucks and the first muffin said “mmmm this is delicious what is it?” The next muffin said “I don’t know, but it kind of looks like… YOUR BROTHER!!” *Gasp*

Doesn’t everyone love computers, hackable, glitchy, ruin your eyes computers?

I never got why everyone in middle school needs a boyfriend/girlfriend. (Really shocked/annoying voice) Wow I want someone to stare at and not say anything to as well!

I also never got why people like to eat junk food. You know the kind of food that makes you sick, and unhealthy, (starting to drift off) the kind of food that is tasty, and flavorful and convenient and… (Snaps out of it) Huh I’m kind of hungry. Eh I’ll just have some potato chips.

You know what really bugs me? Misleading titles. “Hey look there’s an article in the newspaper titled bugs endangered! Wait this article is only about technology starting to get rid of errors.”

and what is it about people always saying “oh you’re so cute” or “oh my god look how handsome you are”, yeah this is my natural state, I already know I’m beautiful

What did the mitt say to the baseball “Catch ya later”

I think my jokes are funny because I based them on reality. Okay, maybe not all of them are from reality. I still based most of them though, and most, if not all of them are relatable to you. Yes reader you. Take a look at them and see. 

Motivational Poster

The expectations of our motivational poster are four images. Three of them are symbolic images that represent you in some way, and the other one is a picture of your face. We also need our manifesto in our poster and our personal quotes. Our text should also be kerned to make it so that there are no spaced without text. We also need a Triadic Color Scheme which is one color with two other harmonious colors on the color wheel, to make the image more visually pleasing. Last but not least we need Blending options and Adjustment layers. We basically need to adjust some of the setting to our text, make an outer glow, bevel and emboss, drop shadow etc.

I did my whole poster just using photoshop. Don't get me wrong though photoshop isn't easy, but it has a lot of power if you use it right. What I did was, take all of my photos ( the three symbols and my portrait) and put them underneath my manifesto and quotes. Then I kerned my text, and picked my triadic color scheme. I used some layer adjustments and color balances in order to turn my pictures a different color to match my color scheme. I then, changed the opacity of my text so you could see the images with my text.



My biggest challenge in this project was definitely kerning the text to make it fit the page. At first I didn't know that your text had to cover the page, I thought that you had to leave room for your images to fit in. I forgot that we could turn down tho opacity to make the text see through, but hey, this is only the beginning of the year so don't blame me. I think I could improve by listening to the teacher a bit better. Also, by asking the teacher what to do, when I need help with the project. I don't think I did so bad though, I got a 3/4, which means I only missed one thing.

Personal Manifesto

Hey guys, long time no see. Five interesting facts about myself, is that I love to run around a lot. I also play a game called Magic The Gathering, which is a very cool card game. I am part of our schools morning news team and I like to read. My favorite color is blue and I like to eat food. I am also a twin. I am really not an interesting person as you can see. I don't know why teachers always tell you to write about something interesting, there is almost nothing interesting in a teenagers life.


Our new project is a manifesto which is when someone declares what they are going to do or believe in, in a certain time period. My manifesto is "You can do it. Live life to the fullest and don't let it go. Go to work and make it work. Cease the opportunity, and make the best of the moment. Do what you can and forget what you can't. Don't get down on the things that get you down. Get up on the things that get you up. Have dreams. Make them happen. Do good on tests. Try hard. Be a role model. Turn school into summer. Turn around and try a new way. You may like it. You may not. A bad truth is a lie. Take chances, do it well, make it great, do it again." So, it doesn't matter how old or young you are, anyone can make a manifesto! It could take you years and years or 5 minutes.

My manifesto applies to my readers because everyone needs to step up and take a chance in life. Everyone needs a moment where they can shine, and not get overshadowed by someone else, that's why people need to step up in life. That is what I wanted my manifesto to be about. Taking a chance, and if it doesn't go your way then oh well, try again next time. As well as when it does go your way, then you know that you can do it and attempt it another time. So, the next time opportunity comes your way what are you going to do? "Cease the moment" or back down and cower away. (Oh no, sorry I just realized I used the wrong seize. Instead of seize I put cease, gosh dang it homophones.)

Music Videos Rock

P5T1 Centuries from Kapaa Middle School MEDIA on Vimeo.

The next project we are working on are music videos. On my team are Preston, Kynan and Tim. We were all assigned jobs by our director/ leader Preston. I got the job as the camera man since I was the most experienced with the camera. Tim got the job of Tripod Man which means he set up the tripod. Kynan is the main character in our story and he carries all the equipment there and back. Our story is about Kynan being bullied, and being the guy that nobody wants to hang around with. He goes up to a group of kids, Preston, Tim and I, and we say he can't hang out with us. Then we accept him and allow him in our group.

I think the audience will enjoy the resolution in our story the most. The resolution in our story us accepting him in our group. I think that the audience will enjoy this the most because it has the most symbols about being friends and being appreciated. After all the Kynan goes through he finally gets into our group. Wait no, this just in, I have now been "promoted" to the kid being bullied because Kynan wasn't there one of the days we needed to film, so we changed our story to make me the bullied one. Anyway I am now getting bullied and I get accepted into Preston and Tim's group.

Our music video shows what we have learned this year because we've showed interesting angles and we did Photoshop. Kynan and Tim did the Photoshop picture while Preston and I were doing the editing. We had put a lot of time editing and cut all of the scenes into smaller segments, because our teacher had told us that we could have 5-2 second scenes. The Photoshop editing was not very hard, but someone had deleted all of our pictures except for the one we needed, but we needed two different pictures. So, we improvised by taking a screenshot of one of our video clips and used that.We would have done an animation but nobody wanted to and we had to little time.

Here are the results.

Lyrical Livelihood

Personally my favorite song is demons by Imagine Dragons. These lyrics make me feel connected to everyone because in truth everyone has a dark side. Everyone has that little devil on their shoulder, and evil side to them. It just makes us all together. Some people can fight their inner demon more than others, and at some point those people have difficulty fighting their demon. The demon never goes away and he is always there, and that song shows it. It shows that someone is having trouble with their monster inside them and is attempting to fight it.

The song my team chose to work on is the song Centuries. My teammates are Kynan, Preston and Tim. We picked it because it was a very catchy tune and it was the only one we could agree on. At first I wanted to do a tiny tim song, which two of my other teammates have heard of. Except one of my teammates didn't want to do it, but the other one who had not heard of it was okay with it. Our teacher said that all teammates had to agree on a song so we couldn't do that. So, we ended up doing Centuries, which everyone had heard of and was good with. All I am trying to say is that no one could decide on a song so we just all went with what preston had suggested on.

The visual story our music video will tell is about someone who is bullied and beaten up, and who nobody likes. He then walks up to a group of the cool kids and says hey can I be in your group? At first they reject him but then one of the members say that they should allow him in their group. This story tells us that even if you think you are a reject, and nobody likes you, you still have to try to make friends and eventually you will succeed. This relates to our audience because everyone had that moment when they had no friends at all. This is just to say that you need to try. The performer of this music video is Fall Out Boy.