Category Archives: English

Theme Park Project

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Contribution Paragraph:

Throughout the theme park project, my main role was to create the characters in our park. I chose the three characters who made the most sense to interact with and used the small bits of information provided about their appearances to draw them. For example, the book mentioned that John looked muscular, attractive, and had long hair, and as there are no pictures of him to reference, I based his drawing on those points. I based the character’s interactions on how they acted in the book, for example, Wayne was showing off his martial arts to Virgil and spent all his free time practicing so, in the park shows off his different martial arts to the guests. After I finished with the characters, I went around the group to see who needed help and ended up helping Ben with the show posters. I made the templated for two of the posters and sent them to him to put text in them however only one made it into the presentation as the other didn’t send properly. Finally, I prepared the slide and script for my PowerPoint slide of the Raccoon mascot of our theme park. By creating the characters of our park, it made me think more about all of the characters in the book as well as the different interactions they had.

Map:

Brochure:

Here is the link to our brochure:

https://www.canva.com/design/DAE8TGyDolM/Tt5D0EZCzs1WQHRKSdgC0w/edit?utm_content=DAE8TGyDolM&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton#1

Eminent Person Practice Interview Reflection

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In my practice interview with Natalie, I tried to balance the questions between her personal life and school so that it didn’t feel like she was overwhelmed with personal questions or that she was overwhelmed with questions about school. It felt like that strategy worked well because I didn’t get repetitive answers. I will do the same thing when I try and interview my eminent person trying to find a balance between his work and his personal life however with him, I would try and lean more towards work. One critique that I got from Colin to work on was speaking in a monotone voice which I could see how that might make the interviewee feel unappreciated or like I’m not interested in what they’re saying. With my eminent person interview, I will try and sound more excited and switch up my tone of voice constantly so that the person sees I am engaged in the conversation. The other piece of criticism that Colin gave me was that I was kind of fidgeting with my laptop as well as shuffling my feet which he found distracting. I could see how that might be distracting or make it seem like I wasn’t paying attention, I didn’t notice that I was doing that, so I am glad that Colin brought it up. In the eminent person meeting it will most likely be over zoom so the shuffling of feet wouldn’t matter, and I wouldn’t have a laptop to fidget with, but I will keep it in mind for future in-person interviews. For the practice interview, I only prepared ten questions to ask, and it felt like the interview was over quite quickly. For my real interview I will prepare around fifteen questions but probably won’t ask all the questions, so the interview doesn’t go on for too long. Also on that note, I will try and ask more follow-up questions because I saw that Colin and Clara asked a lot and they seemed to be very engaged in the interview. The only other thing I can think of that I could’ve done better for the practice interview was preparing a bit more. I didn’t have my questions in any particular order, so a couple of times it took me a few seconds to figure out which question I wanted to ask her. For my eminent-person interview, I will order the questions in the order that I plan on asking them so that I can transition between questions faster and not ruin the flow of the interview. Those are the four main things that I could improve on from my practice interview and that I will apply to my real interview in the near future.

Eminent Intro Post Reflection

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While I was reading my peers blog posts, one thing that I noticed was that two people didn’t format their posts into paragraphs and the other three people did. While reading the posts there was a significant difference between the two, the two that didn’t have paragraphs were slightly less engaging than the other three and I found that I lost my spot a few times while reading. Something else that I noticed was some people didn’t use very many pictures and videos which were less engaging compared to the ones that had many photos and links. Although it didn’t make a massive difference in these short posts, a long post that was only words would get boring much faster than one which had a link or picture that I could see every paragraph or two. The final thing that I noticed was how the posts that had a quote at the start I felt like I learned a bit more about the eminent person than in the posts that didn’t have a quote. In my future posts I will continue to use those three strategies to keep my posts engaging and interesting for the reader as well as the helpful feedback that I received on my blog post.

Eminent Person Intro Post

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“Digger—aka Todd Fiander—is one of the original trail builders that gave Vancouver’s North Shore its legendary status in the mountain biking world” (Diggerknowfear.com n.d.). For my eminent person this year I’ve decided to research Todd Fiander. He is an iconic mountain bike trail builder and filmmaker in North Vancouver who is one of the few people to be inducted into the mountain biking hall of fame. One of the reasons that I chose Todd as my eminent person was because I ride the trails that he built twenty-five years ago, and I watch the movies that he made.  He’s also a prominent figure in mountain biking which is what I spend most of my free time doing. We both share a love for mountain biking, trail building, and filmmaking. Some of our common strengths include determination, perseverance, and patience, and both of us learn best hands-on. In TALONS my goal is to try my hardest in classes and to make new friends, when Todd is making a new trail or movie, he will put a ton of time into it to make it the best it can be, and he’s done lots of collaborations with other people like Dan Cowan. I can’t see any barriers that I would have connecting with Todd. 

https://diggerknowfear.com/ 

  

Fiander lived in North Vancouver and picked up the new sport of mountain biking in 1990 and was one of the first people to be doing it. In 1995 he got tired of riding on hiking trails and running into hikers, so he made the first bike-specific trail on the North Shore. The first trail that he built was on Mount Fromme and because of how wet the area is he used wooden bridges to get over swamps and creeks which hadn’t been seen anywhere else at the time. During his first build, he discovered his love for trail building which inspired him to keep making trails. Fiander has now hand-built over 35 trails and almost 60km of trail which is why he is nicknamed “Digger”. After he built a few trails, Dan Cowan came along and decided that his trails weren’t crazy enough, so he made his own trails with huge jumps and stunts. Eventually, the two builders started collaborating and became the iconic duo of Digger and Dangerous Dan. Because of the trails that these two built the North Shore was gaining popularity and more people were picking up the sport. 

 In late 1997 Fiander came out with his first film “North Shore Extreme” which was the first of ten that would come later. His film featured anyone in the area who was willing to ride the trails that he and Dan had built for the movie. The film helped the riders like Kim Steed and Wade Simmons to gain popularity and Kim Steed even used it to promote his bike shop which is a huge success now. Not only did it gain popularity for the riders but also for the trails in Vancouver. Mountain bike enthusiasts all over the world saw the film and saw the style of riding here, other places started to adopt a similar style which is now known as “freeride”. The film also attracted mountain bike enthusiasts all over the world to come to Vancouver and many of whom stayed to develop the trail system, even more, to make it one of the most popular places for mountain biking in the world. 

https://nsmb.com/articles/4928-digger-north-shore-history-x-part-ii/

 

 Also in late 1997, Fiander helped to create the North Shore Mountain Bike Association (NSMBA). The NSMBA was created to essentially stand up for trail builders and the trails. One of the trails on Fromme was destroyed by a hiker and Grouse Mountain Resort was planning on taking over Fromme, Seymour trails were threatened by housing development and so were the Cypress trails and the NSMBA was going to fight to keep the trails. Currently, the NSMBA has over 2,500 members that help support the maintenance for trails on the North Shore with millions of people that come to ride the trails every year, and it’s one of the biggest, most well-known mountain biking associations in the world. 

https://nsmba.ca/history/ 

 In summary, Todd Fiander is one of the most prominent figures in the mountain bike world who is one of only a few people to be inducted into the Marin Mountain Biking Hall of Fame for his extensive trail work and films as well as his creation of the NSMBA. 

https://mmbhof.org/ 

 

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