Adaptable Agriculture

     I wanted to understand why it is important to make our agriculture adaptable. This TedTalk by Cary Fowler discusses the issues of climatechange and food supply.

Cary's work in preservation of crop production provides insight of one way peop;e are already preparing for a new kind of agriculture. Check out this Tedtalk by Britta Riley to find out what she's doing to help.

What conclusions about the importance of adaptable agriculture can you draw from these two Tedtalks? How is climate change related to crop production? Can you contruct a model, like Riley's, that would change how agriculture is farmed? What would result if our agriculture was not able to adapt to it's surrounding environment? Can you assess the importance of adaptable agriculture?

Learning from Failure

I definitely was not successful in learning how to play the acoustic guitar. I’m nowhere close to being able to play You’re Beautiful by James Blunt. No matter how much intrinsic motivation I have to accomplish a task, it really doesn’t make any difference. Unless I have some skill set in what I’m doing, I won’t be able to complete a task, like being able to play guitar. It doesn’t matter how hard I try, my fingers are simply not long enough for me to be instrumentally inclined. Maybe it’s best for me to progress in the skills that I already have, such as photography, instead of trying to learn to be good at things that I clearly have no talent in.

Rainy in Ocean Shores

     I am not as good at playing guitar as I had expected to be by this point in my project. I’m having difficulties getting my hands into positions where my fingers can stretch out enough to reach all the strings I need to hold down, without holding down other strings that are sppose to remain loose. I’m learning that my intrinsic motivations and YouTube videos alone are not enough to help me master playing the guitar. Fortunately, I am currently in Ocean Shores on a church retreat and it's pretty rainy here. So we're trying to keep dry indoors, lucky for me a couple of the leaders here have Music Majors, so hopefully they’ll be able to assist me with my learning adventure.

Colorful Chords

    My learning goal for the next two weeks is to learn how to play You're Beautiful by James Blunt on the acoustic guitar. I have already watched this YouTube video posted by Mahalo

  
I charted out the chords and associated each of them with a color:
G = blue
G/F# = green
Em7 = yellow
Cadd9 = orange
D/F# = pink

Then, I put color associated sticky notes on the neck of my sister’s guitar, so that I’ll have an easier time learning where to place my fingers to play each chord. By the end of the next two weeks, I plan to be able to semi-fluently play You’re Beautiful by James Blunt. If I start having difficulties, I have lots of friends that I can go to for help.