Midpoint SSP Reflection

I've been working on making my Jack parser, which is due in about a week. The class has been a lot more empty without all the other seniors, but it's still fun! This lab has been taking a lot longer than the ones earlier in the year because it's a lot harder for me to conceptualize how to write the parser and handle all the possible cases. Most classes are just work blocks, but some of the earlier classes were Dr. Mattern teaching the material we need to know for the lab.

We're about halfway through the book My Friends by Fredrik Backman. I've liked the book so far, but there's been some mixed opinions on it in our group. My Friends is (as the name implies) about the friendship and love between a group of four friends in the past, and how their friendship extends into the future. They meet the main character - Louisa - who has her own special friendship with her friend Fish and is artistic, just like one of the four friends in the past. We've been discussing what we think about the friendships and what the twists will be in the future, and I've really liked hearing everyone's thoughts.

We haven't talked much about politics yet with the SHHS students, but we've spent two exchanges getting to know each other. They were all really nice, and we got to know each other by talking about our lives and each bringing in an object that is meaningful to our lives. I brought in my laptop because it's covered in stickers from different events I've attended that each meant a lot to me. The political typologies quiz was really interesting because on some of the questions, BB&N looked more conservative than SHHS. You could see on some of the questions how our environment and communities affected our opinions on specific political issues as well.

I've only made the whole wheat bread and pita so far, but it's been a lot of fun and I've learned a lot! My whole wheat bread wasn't the best, but I think it was mostly because I don't like whole wheat bread that much. My mango jam turned out great for that week, though! I made the bread quite early in the week and then had to freeze it for class which wasn't ideal, so I decided to make the bread on Tuesday mornings after that, which is what I did this week for the pita. The pita turned out really well, and it was even better because it was fresh from that morning. I'll definitely be making the pita again in the future and changing the recipe a bit to make it more like the pita from Sofra that I really like.

I've been teaching one student - Bowen - for the classes this spring. He's the most advanced of the group and is the most interested in actually learning as much as he can. I've been teaching him Java, and I've been starting with the basics of object-oriented programming (classes, methods, functions, objects, etc.), mostly teaching him what he wants to learn. I love teaching him - he loves learning and he's a lot of fun. Once we get through this material, I'm planning on trying to do a USACO problem and teaching him more about arrays.

I've had a lot of fun at sailing so far this spring! I went to a regatta two weeks ago where we raced in high wind in the bay, which was my first time in a 420 (a type of boat). Yancheng and I ended up capsizing, and it turned out my drysuit didn't work, so I wasn't able to keep racing because the water was cold enough to get hypothermia. I've missed some practice because I don't have a drysuit for the time being while the school orders a new one (and it's not safe to sail without one because of the water temperature), but I'm excited to get back to sailing soon.

I've been having a great time during SSP so far! It's been really nice to get to focus on what I want to do without being overwhelmed by homework. I've had a hard time doing things outside of school requirements because I've had two revisit weekends that were three and four days each - but it's also been hard with my activities being spread out throughout each day. I haven't been able to take advantage of the time between each activity because of how it's scheduled.