Made in Bangladesh, Leadership Video

      "Made in Bangladesh", a fifth estate episode about then collapse of the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh. At first thought it was sort of like watching a video about the animals that we eat and how they are abused, you get this urge to not buy from those places anymore, but when you think further into it that might not actually be the best solution. I highly doubt that if these people had other options of work that they would choose to work in these factories so if the consumer market went down all these people working in factories, good or bad, would be out of the only job they can get, which wouldn't be helping them. However, as much as we don't want to put them out of a job our conscious and human morals don't want to be part of something that makes people suffer and work in dangerous situations for 25 cents an hour. As well not buying clothes from places that use these factories is not as simple as it may seem. Stores like SuperStore have a list of factories that have been inspected and deemed a having healthy working conditions, and these are the factories from which they order, but those good factories sometimes sub contract these orders to other not safe or healthy factories without any say, knowledge or control of the store. So you may think you are buying clothes made in inspected and well kept factories, but really you aren't. I understand that this post might seem like a bit of a jumble of words and opinions, but that is because the knowledge of this is very conflicting. In short terms, not buying clothes made in Bangladesh or other places that use bad factories would put these garment workers out of the only job they could get, buying them would be being a part of such bad treatment of poor people and any attempts to only buy from stores which use safe factories may be not actually work do to safe factories sub contracting to not safe factories. 

Leadership Social Emotional Report Card

     Recently, in leadership, we have been making social, emotional report cards for everyone in the class. This consisted of everyone writing comments for each other and anonymously placing them in people's envelopes. Today we read all the comments and I learned somethings about what others thought of me. For example some people said that I was a natural leader and good at sharing ideas. Others said that I am very active in the class and that I am a good role model. Many people also said that they liked how passionate and dedicate I am about things that I feel strongly about. People also said that I am outspoken and help to distinguish individuality in others. For the most part I learned that people think I am a good and natural leader and that I am passionate about my causes. I found it interesting how many people actually noticed these things about me.

In The Weight Room

Being in the weight room is usually not my favourite place to be for P.E, I find it's too hard to keep people encouraged and working as well as keeping yourself motivated, but this time was different than times in past years. My group actually worked really well and got most of the sheet completed, we had laughs as well, like my little struggle to see my phone when I was doing the bridge. We had a fun and productive time. We did squats, crunches, pushups, burpees, stairs, high knee and the bridge and a modified version of fish out of water. We aslo did the plank. These things worked our quads, abs, deltiods, core and pecs, glutious, calves (Heel lifts), hamstrings and some more core work. The pictures for these have also been posted on Anastasia's blog, but anyone's that I can of me I will re-post on this blog once I get home and on my computer.

The Tuesday

Tuesday started out sunny and wonderful. Then came fitness, which was the tough mudder. Admittedly this wasn't my favourite and it sort of went downhill after the first part. My team did well for pushups, dips and leg lifts, the hill climb was fairly good, but afterwards we were confused and questioning what we were doing. Asking a teacher could have probably helped, but I don't think there was anyone nearby. We completed the stair run thing fairly ok, and leap frog was kind of low key, but we ran out of time and stopped a little early. This is not my proudest fitness day and for next time I would definately focus on motivating myself and my group members more and getting more into the activities, the evidence and videos for this are on Anastasia's blog, since I can't have pictures of my face on my blog or anything connecting my full name to my face or location. 

After school I had cross country with Brittany. I have been doing cross country since the 3rd run and my goal has been to not walk throughout any race, so far I have done well at keeping with this goal. I haven't walked yet. The race on Tuesday was our best so far, I got 9th place and Brittany got 11th. It was a fairly small group and they put senior and junior boys and girls together so I don't know if those places are actually that much of an achievement, but it felt pretty good and there were atleast 15 junior girls maybe a little more. So 9 out of 15 or more sounds pretty good to me. This race was 4.8km, our next race is this Thursday (So today) and its 5km. I'm hoping to stay mentally strong and keep my record of not stopping and hopefully get an even better placing than last time.

Cross Country wasn't the last thing on my list for Tuesday, once I got home I still had to do my paper route. Usually I can finish my round in 1 1/2 hours, but since it was late and my mum wanted me home in time for dinner I had to complete it as fast as possible. My solution for this was to try to not stand still AT ALL! Which I managed to do, until the wheel on my cart stopped working and I had to drag the thing, but I still got my time down to 1hour and got home by 7. I had started at 5:57 and the last paper was delivered at 6:52 then I just had to walk home. 

I was proud of myself at the end of the day, maybe fitness wasnt the best day, but I still did pretty well in cross country and got my fastest time yet for paper route, and managed to get home in time for dinner. All in all I felt it was a very successful day with lots of fitness efforts throughout the day even if the actual school fitness wasn't my proudest moment. Pictures will be up of times and the ribbon I got for cross country as soon as I can find it, (Its somewhere on my phone, or ipod, it think... shhhh) 

This is Jaskiran and I doing the push-ups for fitness.

Jaskiran and I doing dips for fitness, I think most of the videos are filled with my ongoing commentary of... ummmm... lets call it life, yes that works... for the most part. 

Leadership Assesment

~ Respecting others, ourselves, and the opinions of everyone

     G, I always make sure to take in everyone's opinion and give anyone who wishes to to put their input in on whatever we are doing. 

~ Individuality and being able to express ourselves freely

      G, I admire others who are different from the norm and don't worry about what others think when I am being myself. 

~ Creating and maintaining a safe and positive environment 

     I think our class as a whole is good at creating a safe and positive environment everyday and I don't think we need to evaluate ourselves individually for this point because this is done much more successfully in a group rather than by one person.

~ Keeping a tenacious nature about our passions

      G, My passions stand most strongly with helping LGBTQ youth and being an advocate for LGBTQ youth and people. I run Sullivan's GSA with my friend and I take homophobic comments very seriously and challenge anyone who uses them. I am also involved in many other LGBTQ groups along with my family and stick firmly to these issues. Whenever I have been asked about what issues I see in the world I always mention something LGBTQ. I do know that there are other issues in the world and take action to them as well, but my strongest support is in the LGBTQ community.

~ Providing others with similar opportunities as ours

      S, I find that this point is the hardest to work to, because I don't see as many opportunities to full fill this point on a daily basis. Having some homeless friends I do my best to help out any homeless or struggling people I see on the streets, but personally I feel that this is my weakest point out of the 5.

The Loco Locomotion

I like pretty much all of the fitness activities and days so I will be repetitive in saying that another one of my favourite exercises we have done for fitness was the Loco Locomotion, which I very often seem to call the Loco Locomotive, because, well I really don't know. Plus trains are cool. Anyways for this I was fairly pleased with myself. I didn't slack off on the activities of the locomotion, but I did slow down near the end. My goal for next time is to be more consistent in my pace and then increase the pace each time we do it. I would also like to have fit in more lines for the sprints and skipping.\

Goals:

Find a consistent pace (Once found increase)

Work towards fitting in more lines of sprints and skipping  

30 for 30

Another activity we have done for fitness has been 30 for 30, where we do 30 activities in partners. Each partner doing the activity for 30 seconds and then getting a 30 second break. I felt that this was one of my most successful fitness days, I was able to push myself through all of the activities without cutting any short and still come up with some difficult activities such as burpies and air jacks. I was still sweaty and red faced afterwards, but I was proud that I hand't slacked off and was able to mentally push myself past any mental obstacles. My only thing that I would like to improve on for next time would be to be faster at the activities to try and test my mental strength and push myself even when I am going faster than last time.

Goals:

Get in more repetitions of each activity

The Community Run

We have also done the community run, which is one of my favourite activities to do for fitness. I got 29 minutes, which I feel is quite terrible, because I know I can actually run much faster than that, which shows that I didn't push myself enough. Therefore this is my goal for the next time we do the community run, to push myself more and achieve a time of at least 25 minutes, hopefully less. Because I allowed myself to walk for some times I didn't achieve a time faster than 29 minutes, which means to reach improvement I need to be more strong mentally to not allow myself to walk during the community run. 

Goals:

Time: 25 minutes or less

Stops: 2-0

The Hill Run

The second fitness activity we did was the hill run. It consisted of running up the hill in thirds for seven repetitions of each third. I managed to run each set continuously and encourage my friend to run the last one with me. I really enjoyed the hill run, but would like to improve my speed for it. To achieve this I like to run up any hill that I have in front of me. I also run at the YMCA with the treadmill elevated to about 3-5% and increase it whenever I can feel it getting easier. After I finished the hill run I ran all the way back to Sullivan with Mrs. Philips. 

Goals:

~ Improve on speed

The Beep Test

Our first fitness this year was the beep test. I set my goal of 9+ and told my friends. I tried really hard to push myself past, but only got 9.1. I worked hard to on the after part of the beep test as well. I got 20 push ups, which admittedly isn't my best, but that means I have a goal for next time. For T-test I got 12.3 and I managed a full minute of plank. I don't completely remember the levels for the flexibility test but I got either 4 or 5. I was terrible with the balance boards and hit the ground about 12 times in the set 30 seconds. This is one of the biggest things I focus on, on each beep test. I don't remember my score for the vertical jump, but I know I have room for improvement on that as well. I have room for improvement on each part of the beep test meaning I have goals for the next time we do the beep test. 

Goals:

Beep Test Level: 10+

Push Ups: 30+

T-Test: 12

Plank: 1.30 min

Flexibility Test: Level 5

Vertical Jump: ?