Cooking with Kian and Emilie

Emilie, Kian, and I went to Kian's house to bake a few things for our project this quarter. We all love cooking and thought it would be a good way to get closer and bond over food. We made a chocolate chip cookie cheese cake and a popcorn and marshmallow cake. After shopping for the needed supplies we made the marshmallow cake because it was pretty simple to do, it just required melting marshmallows and sugar and adding it to our popcorn and chocolate and letting it harden. The cheese cake was a little harder and required us to work out what we thought the instructions meant. While everything was cooking we got to hang out, watch tv, and talk like we would in soc class. It was cool to get closer to Emile and Kian, we have always been sort of friends and talked briefly on occasions, but never really hung out. Using cooking and food to hangout is a good idea and great way to get closer with people you might not be best friends with but still know.

New Project

Here is my new proposal for 3rd quarter. I will be doing my project along with Emile Revees and Kian. We are baking food together a few times during the quarter. Yesterday was our first time, we made a popcorn cake and a cookie dough cheesecake.

2nd Quarter Project Summary

As I mentioned in my last post Kian and I decided to do the "homeless thing" again but this time we would be better prepared and be more out in the open. We thought of the perfect place to try it out again, we went to the Boston Commons. Last time we were pretty nervous and not sure what to really do, this time we had a better feel for it. We planned a little longer this time and made sure that we had the best costumes we could come up with. Once we go to Boston and parked we made sure no one saw us getting out in our homeless clothes, as it would give us away. Once on the Commons we wondered around for a bit and ended up sitting down on the ground. We had a cup out for change and watched as people went by, but didn't say to much at first. Most people never gave us a second look, and if they did it was to make sure they avoided us. However a few people gave us some change and said god bless, and things of that nature. By the end of the day we had actually gotten something like 8.25 in change. There was one exception to the "avoiders" and the people who gave us change, this man called us out on not being homeless. At first I didn't know what to say, but the man was relaxed about it, he wasn't mad but was letting us know that he knew. We kinda got into a conversation with him and he told us he had gotten into some hard drugs when he was our age and ended up dropping out of high school. He had bad luck with jobs and it didn't help that he said he wasn't really motivated to work either. Throughout the conversation I was thinking, and surprised at how calm, and nice he was, he wanted to share his life story and didn't mind talking to two random kids pretending to be homeless. In the end we found out he was in his thirties, when Kian and I had guessed he must of been at least 60. I guess being homeless makes you look a lot older then you actually are.

This Quarters Project

I am not going to be changing my proposal for the coming terms project. Me and Kian are still doing our homeless project, but this time we will be doing it in a different place, maybe Boston.

First Time Being Homeless

On last Sunday I went into Waltham with Kian dressed as homeless men. We met at his house and planned out our costumes. I had on messed up pants, a hoodie, wind breaker, and a large hat so people couldn't exactly see my face. We both looked pretty homless. We also made cardboard signs asking for spare change. We then headed to the moody street area of Waltham. At first we where a little to scared to go out in public like homeless people. After a while of walking around the back streets, so we could get a feel for it, we went onto moody street and sat on a corner and just watched people.

As people walked by the gave us looks and didn't know what to make of two homeless kids sitting on the corner. Lots of people who were walking on our side of the street would cross over to the other side by the time they got close to us. People eating in the Upper Crust Pizza across the street would turn around and look. No one offered spare change but people watched and looked at us. I was a little worried that people knew we were just regular kids and acting homeless, but i think I was just being paranoid, they seemed pretty convinced.

For the next times we go out for our 5 hours we will go to other places, we are trying to save Boston for the last time we go out, but I don't think there are that many homeless people in the towns around here, so going to Boston would be a lot better because people would expect to see homeless people more and won't act so surprised. We were thinking the boston commons would be a good idea.

New Project

I teamed up with Kian in my class to do a project, I have left the previous idea I had and am now working with Kian. Kian had an idea that we dress up as homeless men and go into places like Boston, Waltham, and Natick and see what peoples reaction are to us.

Proposal

I am not exactly sure what I would want to do for my project, so I will run a few ideas by you here and you can let me know what you think would be best, or that fits the requirements. Maybe I could write letters to soldiers and write about what it means for us as people from Weston who are for the most part unaffected by the war, but we still support the soldiers and everything they do. Or write letters to people in the grade, but letters that would promote happiness, basically just write a really nice letter, in hopes it would improve the persons day and make them happy to know someone went out of their way to improve there day, then see what their reactions are, either they are grateful and happy, or just throw the letters away and think it is a waste of time.