Portfolio

Interview Essay

In English 3/4 we were required to interview an adult about their job. The reason this is one of my favorite works is because I developed my interviewing skills and got to think about the kind of job I want. I wrote about his life and how he got to his current job and then asked about what he liked about his job. I liked that I got to pick a person to interview because it gave me the opportunity to learn about a job that isn't that well known.

Sara Scott
Molly Fenn
English ¾
October 30, 2015

“You cannot pretend you like something for 12 years.”
Kung Fu Instructor
Sifu Danny
I’m 29 years old, and I teach Kung Fu to people young and old alike. I’ve been working at this studio for 9 years and in China, 3 years. I've been working as a teacher for 12 years, since I was 17 years old. I first started martial arts when I was 7 years old, I got no choice because I'm an illegal kid in China. I'm the third child in my family so I cannot go to the real school, the regular school. But my dad had a friend, they knew each other from the Shaolin Temple. My dad said “Well, at least he can learn something from somebody.” He sent me to the Shaolin Temple, I don't know anything by then so I started working with my Sifu for about ten years.
Sifu means teacher, no, not just teacher. Also like father because he teaches us martial arts and we do kung fu with him, but also, we are living together, like one class, 45 people were all living with our Sifu together. Kind of like my father. Not only teaching me more martial arts but more how to be a good person. Every year we only got a two weeks off, only the Chinese new year we got. We can go back to our home to see our parents. Which is ten years I spent most of my time with my Sifu. I did many competitions and worked with my wushu (performance martial arts) team and was very successful.
There was a performance here in America. I saw Sam, who’s now my boss, there at the performance. I knew Sam from China and we met each other competing together back in China. After the performance, he introduced this job to me and I thought about it a little bit. I thought, “I'll just try it.” but it turned out I really did enjoy it. Teaching here is a lot different, teaching martial arts here than in China. China, you know, very different culture, but I really do like here and I like my boss. He’s a nice person, we laugh all the time, and are joking all the time, and when it’s work time, he knows I take work very seriously. I really enjoy it here, my coworkers and all the children I teach. I think that's what makes me so good at teaching, I really do love it. All of these instructors are working really hard with the kids, that's how the business grew up. How many martial arts schools in Alameda or in the Bay Area? None of them are like us. We've been teaching martial arts in Alameda for over 13 years. We start from a small studio and now look how many students we have. The reason why we have so many students, a lot of them that have been training with us for over 3 years, 4 years, 5 years is because we’re not like other martial arts schools.With other places you come in, 6 months later or a year later, you're done. We have a lot of advanced students. The reason why we have so many advanced students is because the instructors are training with them really hard, we're working really hard. Also, our curriculum has a lot of self defense, joint locks, and applications for when you are in a fight on the street or something.
I never thought about why I like to teach before. That's very deep. First, because I work with the kids, pretty simple, you don’t have to thought about it. It's just it's a fun job to do to work with kids. Because I really do enjoy teaching with them. I don't know why I just really like it. You know, something, if you don't really like it, you can pretend you like it for one month or one year. You cannot pretend you like something for 12 years. Because I really do, everyday no matter what time. Second, even though I have had a very bad day, I've been fighting with my girlfriend or something happened to me. Once I get in the studio, start working with the kids, I can put all this stuff out of my head and just enjoy with the kids. There is no hard part of my job. I get to share my knowledge for a living, how great is that!? I think this place is where I was meant to be.

Romeo & Juliet (pirates vs. ninjas)

In English 1 I played Juliet Ca-pirate: Act 1. It was a very complex project and I learned a lot of new things. We were required to learn lines, project our voices, manage each other and stay on track. Staying on track was the hardest part. The whole class had to work together so it was very difficult. Even if my acting skills aren't very good, it is still one of my favorite projects.

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Geological Timeline

This was made for Biology class. It was a group project where we were tasked to calculate geological eras in reference to the size of paper we got. Our paper was about 7 feet and contained about 25 drawings. i did a bit over half and did the DNA strand in the middle. I'm really proud of this poster because a huge amount of research went into it and we all worked really well together.

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