"  Any transition serious enough to alter your definition of self will require not just small adjustments in your way of living and thinking but a full-on metamorphosis". 

                                                                                                                      

It is that the time of the year again when old moulds are broken and new ones forged.  As a period in their lives, it is probably more important to the students of form 8 than any other form in the middle school.  As they stand on the cusp of pre-adolescence and adolescence, it is essential that their self-confidence is reinforced and old friendships are celebrated in order to prepare them for the next leg of their journey towards adulthood.  It was with this background that the students of form 8 presented their personal projects on 2nd May in front of an increasingly appreciative audience!

 An already enthusiastic crowd was bowled over by the hard work, ingenuity and passion which the students of form 8 had put into their personal projects.  I was personally very warmed to see the reaction of the audience and extremely proud of my students for   making their project presentation a resounding success.

For  the class assembly on 1st May the students chose to focus on the various relationships and connections built between them in the past year. 


http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_edit?ns=1&feature=vm-privacy&video_id=KjKgI4PFF2w 

The students did an amazing job of highlighting their differences and their transition into a cohesive ‘8th grade family’ despite the presence of such differences.  They displayed a panorama of emotions very ably through their chosen mediums of a skit, a song and a movie.

I wish them all very best for their exam and future. I am sure they will make us proud in the future as well.                                                                                                 

                                                                            -Ms. Gayitri

                                    The first day of school.

  I got up early in the morning of 4th July to get myself prepared. Then I reached school and was feeling a bit uneasy.I reached the classroom and took my seat in the last row. In front of me there was a big whiteboard on the wall. Near it there were descent chair and a table for the teachers.Then a group of boys and girls surrounded me and welcomed me and I forgot all my fears . there was onbe lesson after the other and the teachers were so welcoming ; Then after some interesting period  got over A Bell sounded and  it was time for lunch , we got idli and sambar for lunch. At the end of the day when the  break-off bell rang we had another dose of snacks and left  for home .it was a great experience of making new friends and introducing myself to them and to the teachers.After having such a great first day experience I  would like to say that I am proud of my school and they treat new comers here .                                                                   

                                                                          Aagman Dewan

                       
   
                              The personal experience .....

My project is based on a set of short stories that combine to form an anthology. My book is collection of 5 short stories. Before selecting to write short stories, I had many other options in my mind but in the end I choose this because I have a passion for writing.

In fact, I discovered my love for writing recently when I joined Pathways. I feel that through writing I can express my emotions. I can share my happiness and sorrow with my readers. 

My stories are of different types. Some are based on real events that took place in my life while others are fictional works. Making this project was a wonderful experience. I learnt a lot of new things while doing my personal project and developed a lot of skills. In my opinion I have done a fairly good job however.

 There are quite a lot of lot things I would have liked to improve on if given another chance -  

• I would spend more time doing this project and not 

         leave   things for the last moment.

• Instead of using Microsoft Word I would use Microsoft 

        Office Publisher from the beginning. This would have saved\    

           a lot of my time.

• Read more books so that I have more ideas as to how 

          you   need to write a book.

• Gather people’s opinion about my story and ask them for 

         any improvements etc. 

                                                                           -Parth Kapoor

                                   KIWI’S KITCHEN.

 I chose this project because I love New Zealand, the cuisine of New Zealand and I love cooking/baking because of which I felt that making a cookbook about Traditional New Zealand cuisines was something perfect for my personal project

I had a clear idea in my head of how my book should look. It would be something that stood out and looked professional. Something that you wouldn’t think an 8th Grader could make.

What inspired me to do this as the project is that New Zealand is a country extremely close to my heart, and my favorite country. I also have a Godmother Nicola Fenton who worked as the Hospitality Director for the Parliament of New Zealand, so she knows a lot about food and she taught me some key techniques too. 

My overall experience was really good. In the middle of the process I was doubting if I could actually finish this in time, but in the end I finished it days before the completion date! This project was really challenging for me, and I’m actually really proud of the end product. I think I should’ve spent a little extra time in editing and checking for mistakes.

                                                                              -Aana Kambhoj

                                      A Guide To Draw. 

My Personal Project is a Drawing book, and I named the book as       A Guide To Draw. 

I chose this as my project because my passion was always drawing, but when I was young I couldn’t draw anything which actually looks realistic. When I got a book which showed the steps of drawing cats and I really loved that book because my drawings looked real! Well, with my project I want other people to see this kind of drawing which is very easy and simple to follow.

My inspiration of making this project was a book called, “Draw 50 Cats" by Lee J. Ames and after that I was always following these kind of steps on the internet. I could make the object in no time, and that made me realize how fantastic it would be to make some of my own. I thought that everyone could draw anything if they only knew the key techniques and the proper steps. 

I thought it would be great if I just make my own simple steps instead of copying from the internet. So I looked for the picture of the object on the internet and I would draw it myself, then I thought of making it simpler if I could start off with shapes and lines. And I made someone try to draw one of the pictures and it really looked good.

I would love to repeat making the personal project another time, but I would make some changes which would make the book look better. I would have started this very early so that the deadline timings wouldn’t cause a problem. And add more pictures to the book and I wish I could publish the book properly.                              

                                                  
                                                                    -Swagatalaxmi Aich  

                                                




                                       Manga

My personal project choice was making a Manga . A Manga is a Japanese comic book which is read reverse from American comics. Manga is more popular than Graphic Novels and over  100,000 copies of Manga are sold everyday around the world. ‘POPULAR’ T.V shows like , Dragon Ball Z , Pokemon , Digimon , Naruto , Bleach and One Piece were all once Manga’s before they were turned into ‘Anime’ . Anime is the serialized version of a manga where the comic is turned into an aired TV show . Anime is different to cartoons.

Differences are Cartoons are mostly American and are usually not adapted from a graphic novel . 99% of Anime is adapted from Manga . Anime is for any age , some are not for kids and some are for kids like cartoons. Anime producers usually make more money than cartoon producers. I have made a Manga called ‘The Art of Friendship’ which is about two teenagers that find a scroll and before they get to see what it says, a federal cop catches them and takes them to a delinquent camp. In the delinquent camp their main priority is to escape, so the manga shows their ways of how they escape and what troubles they get into on the way. 

When I first started the Manga I thought I was never going to complete it, I worked at my Manga everyday that I could from when I got home from school till 10:30 at night. Some days I struggled to complete my homework because I felt a lot of stress. On weekends I would work from 10:00am till late at night because I was very determined to finish it. The end result was 54 pages that I was very proud of. This is my very first full Manga.If I would count all the pages that I decided to scrap and throw away I think I would’ve reached at least over one hundred pages.

If I had to do this personal project again I would want to have a more interesting story and my art needs to be better. I would also put more detail in my work so it stands out and make it look more professional. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        -  Aash Fenton
                                     


                                GAME GUIDE 

What did inspire to make a quick game guide? You know what my first idea for my personal project? A model of a respiratory system, second idea a model of the future city and third idea structure of an atom and I didn’t like any of these things. I thought Personal Project is another academic burden project. When I first showed my ideas to my supervisor she was shocked. She told me it shouldn’t be academic and not related to any of the subjects. It should be what you like, what you are capable of. I saw Aash’s project and he was making a manga (Japanese comic) he loved drawing and reading manga so now he was making one, Pulkit was making a model of a stadium and I know he loved cricket, Tanish was making a magazine about NBA and his favorite sport was basketball so why am I not doing what I like? I decided to make quick game guide of the game that I like the most Minecraft.

I think that I learned to be more responsible because no one was there to help or guide except my supervisor who had given me ideas on what to do and I got to know how to use Photoshop because I did my whole personal project on Photoshop. Also I used many other types of software like Microsoft Office Picture Manager, iMovie and Windows Live Movie Maker. So after doing this project I am more familiar with technology.  If I redo my personal project I would opt for better time management because I started late this time so had to work very hard to deliver it on time.   

                                                                                            - Pritish                                                  

After looking back on this project, I think that it has been a good experience because it has taught me more life skills such as time management which was essential in this project and will be essential for any jobs or work for the future. It has taught me how to overlook upon my work and has taught a few things about the printing process such as formatting pages and then converting to PDFs to print properly.

The content overlook has been good because it was only meant for beginners and the easy to understand structure allows the reader to read with a nice flow and with ease. The basics were all included for all the sections that I had included and I made sure that I did not go into too much detail about any section so as to confuse the reader with what the section was about. 

I think that my main weaknesses were that some of my sections might have dragged on a little bit, especial y the History part because I think that I may have gone into a bit. too much detail about it so the reader may lose interest while reading. The same goes for the Laws and Etiquettes because it was very specific about the Laws and Etiquettes.

If I were to a project similar to this, I would probably have more time. Putting that into consideration, I would add in another section on stretches and how the dos and don’ts about it. That would give the reader a full insider on Badminton so they would know the consequences of not stretching and what could happen to your body. I would also print my product slightly earlier because if any problems were to arise, they could be swiftly dealt with.  TO make it better. I could put more effort and time into my back and front cover to give a better and more professional look, this is because it is not the best for a 1st impression. 

                                                                                                                                                  

                                                                                 Advitya

                                                     
                                           
                        Thrilled  with my thriller

It wasn’t easy writing a book. It took hours and hours of research and a lot of time to compile the information together. I was always fascinated by James Bond and all those spies. I read the Alex Rider series and took inspiration from the series. When I first started writing the book I had to make character sketches of each and every character. It was tedious work, but I had to so that all the characters were accurate. I then had to work on the scenes and the settings. Creating the scenes and the settings were not easy. I had to research on places. Find out where they are and what is interesting about them. Since my character travelled from places to places, I had to give in and create a small jetlag.  

i would lie to appreciate Aash  here for the help extended ; 

I am proud of myself for completing a book in a few months. And I hope to write another one soon. 

I think I did a good job writing my first book and I am proud of myself. I learnt to be more efficient with my time management, and I learnt to be more responsible with my work. I would like to add more suspense and action in the book.

                                                                                Tanmay                                             

                            I now  love Pathways !

My first day to pathways was very good and I got my buddy that was Arjun. He helped me in everything like getting my laptop configured and telling me about the school.   I made a lot of friends and I was very happy to know that there are no books and I would be working on a laptop and I also got to know that we don’t have to bring our lunch boxes or something like I used to give money and buying eatable things from our canteen and we always got boiled things or any kind of junk food was available there in my old school but it has totally changed now. Pathways  is very different from   my old school and I already like it here. Second day of my joining the school my grade had to organize an assembly for the whole school . here are few clippings of it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6tyxNIDxWQ&feature=youtu.be      

                                                                                                         

                                                                             -   Gantavya