Projects, Rubric, Polyphasic

Okay, so it's Monday and time for an update! I spent a few hours over the weekend writing the monologue for my IOP. I've got about four minutes, which I could stretch to five when reading "in character" (dramatic pauses, appropriate emotional reactions, etc.). I read Part II of the Communist Manifesto, which was actually exciting; you could picture a stout Russian man, wearing red of course, standing at a podium emotionally delivering it as a speech. It's written almost conversationally, and it's a good read. However, Part III isn't. I barely got through the first section before I switched to another book.

We got another assignment today. Two actually, in French class. Our first is an on-the-spot discussion of a small book we will be reading, L'homme qui plantait des arbres, or something like that. We got a random topic and a random partner, and some of the pairings were pretty funny. The next (and our course ISU by Ontario Secondary School Diploma requirements) is an individual, 4-ish minute oral presentation on any topic related to French culture. It's sort of our practice version of the actual French Oral that will be sent off to "IB World" as our teacher put it. Everyone was pretty excited about that, just as we were for our History Project, which has pretty much the same lack of restriction.

We had a Math test today on Trigonometry, and it was easier than I thought, though I know I made a few mistakes. It was only three pages and most of us actually finished within the period, so our History teacher didn't have to get angry about it.

I'm finding IB likes to be open-ended. "Historical Investigation: it's 2000 words and has to be on something over a decade old." "English IOP: it's max 10 minutes long and has to be based on on of the book we've read." "French Oral: it's 4 minutes max and got to be global and related somehow to French culture." So few restrictions, and those aren't really on the topic, just the length. Even the format is left up in the air. The rubrics also, are rather vague. For example, below is a portion of the rubric for IB Labs (Science classes):

Design
Levels/Marks	Aspect 1	Aspect 2	Aspect 3
	Defining the problem and selecting variables	Controlling Variables	Developing a method for collection of data
Complete/2	Formulates a focused problem/research question and identifies the relevant variables.	Designs a method for the effective control of the variables.	Develops a method that allows for the collection of sufficient relevant data.
Partial/1	Formulates a problem/research question that is incomplete or identifies only some relevant variables.	Designs a method that makes some attempt to control of the variables.	Develops a method that allows for the collection of in sufficient relevant data.
Not At All/0	Does not identify a problem/research question and does not identify any relevant variables.	Designs a method that does not control of the variables.	Develops a method that does not allow for any relevant data to be collected.

In other news, December is here! I went shopping for gifts over the weekend (and I'm a little disgusted that I did it so early) and even wrapped a few of them. I also started thinking about my Polyphasic Sleeping experiment. I need at least a week to adapt to the new schedule and by two weeks I should be physically fine to go on with school and life as usual. So Winter Break is the perfect time to start and it's less then a month away. A friend encouraged me to do a little more research than just blogs, so I did. Here are the best sources I've found so far:

• Steve Pavlina's Polyphasic Sleep Log: the most comprehensive online blog of direct experience switching to a polyphasic schedule and maintaining it.
• Polyphasic sleep strategies improve prolonged sustained performance: A field study on 99 sailors: A scientific journal article on studying how cross-Atlantic sailors naturally fall into a polyphasic schedule when racing.
• Why We Nap: a book about polyphasic sleeping, how it's natural, etc. The only book on the subject, as far as I know.

That's it mostly. Oh, and the poll ended a couple weeks ago, so here are the results and a new poll:

Which class is your favourite?
... Math: 4 (36%)
... English (or your primary language): 1 (9%)
... History: 1 (9%)
... French (or other "secondary language"): 1 (9%)
... Any of the Sciences (Bio, Chem, Physics): 1 (9%)
... Any of the Arts (Visual, Music, Drama/Dance): 3 (27%)
... Philosophy (TOK, Anthro): 0 (0%)