Sophia Elahi RPC Blog

Business 9, Lesson 95 – Where I Want to be in 20 Years

Growing up, almost every child has an idea of what they want to be, do, or become. Obviously, as the person gets older their dream/idea of what their future looks will change. As young children , we have wild and maybe unrealistic, ideas of our future, but when we become teenagers and the prospect of high-school and college come up, we start taking our futures seriously. In this essay, I am going to talk about where I see myself in 20 years.

In 20 years, I will be 33 years old. It is hard to realistically write about the future, especially 20 years from now. But I will try my best. One thing that I know for sure is that I want to be an actress, onstage and in front of a camera. I have been pursing acting since I was very young.

In 20 years, I am an established actress with a few movies and musical theatre productions under my belt. I also want to be married with a child (or two), and be a stay-at-home Mom who writes songs and novels on the side. I want to continue writing for the rest of my life.

Honestly, it feels weird to think of myself as an adult (a little scary too). This essay was a little exciting to write as the future is full of opportunities. I will not lie; thinking about life after high-school and college is exciting. There are so many possibilities out there. Thankfully, I have plenty of time to work towards my dreams.

Thanks for reading!

English 9, Lesson 95 – My Target Audience for My Autobiography

When you are writing a book you must always keep one question in mind: who is my target audience? This question applies to any book whether it is a novel, history book, autobiography, etc. In this essay, I am going to talk about my target audience for my autobiography.

If I write my autobiography now, at age 13, it will mainly be for children around my age. I feel that children my age will be able to relate to my life more than adults. Teenagers will understand what it is like growing up with constant access to the internet, as well as growing up in a Covid world.

Some adults may find it interesting to see the world from the perspective of a 13 year old, but I doubt it. I hope that other teenagers will find my autobiography interesting and relatable.

Thanks for reading!

English 9, Lesson 90 – Benefits of Writing an Autobiography

For the last 90 lessons of the 9^th Grade English course I have been reading and analysing autobiographies. So far I have read Jim Lehrer’s, Helen Keller’s, Mark Twain’s, and Sergei Kourdakov’s autobiographies. Now it is time for me to think about my own autobiography and a question arises: what benefits come from writing an autobiography?

In my opinion, I think people write autobiographies for four reasons: for their own enjoyment, so others can learn from their mistakes, to inspire people, and to leave a legacy behind.

Enjoyment

For me, I love to write and I find it fun, unlike some of my friends. I do not doubt that the people who wrote autobiographies also liked to write. When I was younger my Dad would tell me that people love to talk about themselves, and I think that this is the same for writing. Who would not like to write about themselves? Especially when they know that other people may read it. Writing about your life, especially your childhood, will bring back old memories that you may have forgotten, or have not thought about in a long time. Some people may enjoy looking back on their life and remember the adventures they had.

Educational

Your autobiography can also help other people. You may have heard the saying “you learn from the mistakes of others,” or something around those lines. Let’s say that you made a bad mistake a few years ago and you do not want others to make the same mistake. Putting this incident into your autobiography, with ways to avoid this situation, can educate and help your readers from making the same mistake and landing themselves in an unfortunate position.

Inspiration

Not only can your autobiography educate your readers, you can also inspire them. For example, Helen Keller’s story is definitely a very inspirational story. When I was a young child she was one of my idols. Her story shows that you can do anything if you put your heart into it, even if you are blind and deaf. If you have an inspirational story with a moral, there is a high chance that your readers will be affected by it.

A couple years ago I found an autobiography by a child actor who was on Broadway. At the time I was only 11 years old and I was not a child who liked to read autobiographies for fun, but this certain one intrigued me. I borrowed the book from the library and inhaled it in under a week. The actor’s story was slightly sad, but very inspirational and enjoyable for me. His story showed me that success is never impossible.

Legacy

In the 9^th Grade English course, and the 9^th Grade Business course, Dr North has mentioned leaving behind a legacy many times. Before 9^th Grade I never took the time to think about my legacy. As I am only 13 years old I think I have plenty of time to figure out what kind of legacy I want to leave behind.

For me, my legacy is not something that is important to me (yet). But it occurred to me that for adults their legacy is something that matters to them. For some people, their autobiography is their legacy, or is something that they want to be a part of their legacy. Honestly, I cannot think of a better way to leave a legacy. A book about your life, written by you, does seem like the most fun way to make your legacy.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are many benefits to writing an autobiography. I am sure there may be many other reasons, but these are the four that came to mind when I thought about it.

Thanks for reading!

Business 9, Lesson 90 – The Ideal Apprenticeship, and Why

Earlier in the 9^th Grade Business course, Dr North mentioned getting an apprenticeship during the last few years of high school. In this essay, I am going to talk about the ideal apprenticeship for me and why.

With my school, my parents and I planned it in such a way where I finish high school at 16 years old, giving me a two year gap between high school and college. I had originally planned to get an internship at a production company. But now, I am leaning towards the idea of focusing on my acting in those two years.

But, if I change my mind (again), and decide to get an internship/apprenticeship, I would want it to be based around acting or teaching acting (as an assistant). In my mind, the internship would be ideal if it was not too far away from where I live, and is something that I like and want to do. It would be a huge bonus if I had co-workers who were around my age and have the same interests as me.

As you can see, I am not too interested in getting an internship anymore. I would rather spend my gap years auditioning for acting roles (movie or onstage), learning the Quran (Islam’s holy book), and writing my novels. I would also like to have enough time to enjoy my last few years as a teenager before I go off to college with legal adults who are supposed to be mature and ‘grown-up like.’

English 9, Lesson 85 – How I Can Make My Autobiography Less Disjointed Like Mark Twain’s

This week I started reading Mark Twain’s autobiography in English class. While reading the book I made two observations. One, each chapter is no longer than five pages. The longest chapter (so far) was only three pages long. Two, the stories in each chapter are very disjointed. It was if Twain had ideas but did not take the time to sort them out. In this essay I am going to talk about how I plan to make my autobiography less messy.

In Twain’s autobiography he wrote down memories in chronological order. But none of them really connected together. In Public Speaking class we learnt the importance of making one idea flow into another one when we write out speeches. I think that this is also very important when writing a book. I also felt that Twain was telling random stories. While some were important moments of his life, others seemed irrelevant for readers.

When I write my autobiography I will find links between each idea/story so the book flows smoothly and the readers do not feel like they are reading a messy diary. I will also take time to go through my thoughts and memories before I start writing. I will only write about big/impactful moments in my life and not every funny or amusing memory I can think of.

One way to help me do this is to keep a journal. Humans obviously cannot remember each and every day of our lives. Our minds would be very cluttered if we could do this. Keeping a journal will not only give me something to reference back to, but it will also help me remember certain things or details I would have forgotten if I went by my memory alone.

My parents always say that you can learn from other peoples’ mistakes, and that is what I am going to do with my autobiography. It was very smart of Mr. North to give us a disjointed autobiography to read. Now all the students taking the 9^th Grade English course will not make the same mistakes Twain did.

Business 9, Lesson 85 – How I Will Implement a Chapter of Dale Carnegie’s Book

After four weeks of reading, I have finally finished How to Make Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie! The book was very entertaining and educational. I loved the examples he gave to show how each lesson would work in real life situations. In this essay, I am going to talk about how I plan to apply one of these chapters to my life.

In my last essay, I talked about the most difficult lesson in the book: “if you are wrong admit it quickly and emphatically.” I think that this principle is one that I want (and need) to implement in the future. My plan to start implementing this lesson sound quite simple. I plan to suck up my pride and apologize when I do something wrong. For me, this is the definition of easier said than done. This will be quite difficult at first, but it is not impossible.

I also plan to implement a lesson from part two, chapter three: “calling a person by their name is the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” I totally agree with this. My plan to implement this tactic is to write down their name in my notes or to get their number and add them to my contacts.

As you can see, I have quite solid and easy sounding plans for how I want to apply these tactics to my life. I will admit that the first lesson may not be very easy to do, but I am determined to carry out my plan.

Business 9, Lesson 80 – The Most Difficult Technique in Carnegie’s Book So Far

For the past three weeks I have been reading How to Make Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. At the end of every chapter Carnegie would give a ‘principle.’ In this essay I am going to talk about which principle is going to be the most difficult for me to use.

If I am being honest, most of the principles that I have read about are already things that I know and do. But there is one principle that I know will be the hardest for me to use. It is from Part Three, Chapter Three: “if you are wrong admit it quickly and emphatically.”

I do not know about others, but I find it quite hard to admit it when I am wrong (I will attribute this to my pride). Even when I am wrong, and I know it, I still have a hard time admitting that I was wrong. If I have to admit it willingly and emphatically, that may be a challenge. But if I suck up my pride and admit my mistakes it will help me in the future. The examples Carnegie gave in this chapter proves it.

In this first few pages Carnegie told us a story about him and his dog. He had a park that he liked to take his dog to, and one day a police officer came up to them and asked why the dog did not have a muzzle and a leash. Carnegie said that he had forgotten it at home. The policeman let him off, but warned Carnegie there would be consequences if he caught them again. Carnegie used the muzzle and leash a few times afterwards, but eventually stopped. One day, the same policeman caught them without a muzzle and a leash. Instead of letting him come over and reprimand him, Carnegie went up to him and started to apologize profusely. The policeman took pity on him and let Carnegie off, this time with no warning.

As you can see, when you start apologizing before the other person gets mad you may get them on your side and they will let you off the hook. Carnegie says that people like to feel important, if they feel they helped you and did a good thing, they will feel good about themselves and treat you less harshly.

Maybe I should start trying to use this principle on my Mom when I get in trouble.

English 9, Lesson 80 – Why Was Plunkitt so Open About His Money?

This week in English I finished reading George Washington Plunkitt’s ‘autobiography.’ In the last few chapters, Plunkitt talked about how he gained his wealth, calling his method ‘honest grafting.’ In this essay I am going to talk about why I think he was so open about how he earned his money.

First, let me explain what honest grafting is. Honest grafting is when a politician jumps on any and every opportunity they find to make money. In Plunkitt’s case he would buy things and sell them at an increased price.

An example given in the book was about “when an old brick road was being rebuilt, and the old bricks were being auctioned off. Plunkitt told the other bidders that if they did not bid, he would give them a portion of the bricks. So he bought the bricks for about 2 dollars and gave the other bidders their allotted portions. He could then sell the rest of the bricks and make a profit.”[i]

I personally think that Plunkitt was open about his money for three reasons: publicity, to prove he was not a crook, and he wanted to brag.

As a politician, publicity is a big thing. If you portray yourself as a self-righteous person who is law abiding and caring, the people will love you and vote for you. Plunkitt did a very good job of doing this. In my last essay I mentioned how he was very connected to the people and was always helping them out. By showing everyone how he made his money not only would he be creating talk around his name, he was showing the people how easy it is to make as much money as him.

Plunkitt was a very rich man, and many thought that he used illegal and unethical means to acquire his wealth. By showing talking about his tactic to make money he showed the people and his enemies that he was an honest man. Earlier in the book he said that he thought “The politician who steals is worse than thieves. He’s a fool.”

I also think that by showing people how he made money gave him bragging rights. He explained and showed what he did and in a way, was subtly bragging about how much money he made because of how smart he was. Before Plunkitt ‘honest grafting’ was not a thing. In a way, he was considered the ‘creator’ of honest grafting. If you Google honest grafting Plunkitt’s Wikipedia page is the first result.

As you can see, Plunkitt was quite proud of his new tactic to gain money. Creating a brand new method of gaining money will definitely create a lot of talk around his name, as well as prove to his enemies that he was a law-abiding citizen. I also think that a small part of him wanted bragging rights at dinner parties.

[i] Hussain, Sofia. “Plunkitt and His Money.” 26 May 2021. Web. Retrieved 12 August 2021. https://sofiarpc.home.blog/2021/05/26/english-1-lesson-80-plunkitt-and-his-money/

Blender Project, Section 2 Wrap Up

In the past month I have been working on the second section of the Blender course. The last time we saw Corey (my character), only his head was formed. But in the second section I created his body, arms, hands, legs, and feet.

Once again, this is the first time I am doing this, so please try to ignore how chunky he looks.

Business 9, Lesson 75 – Why is Trust in Establishing Long-Term Business Relationships Important?

Trust is an essential part of any relationship, business or not. In this essay I am going to talk about why trust is important using the example of a small business as it rises up from the ground.

For the sake of this essay, pretend you have a small business. During the early days of your business you meet a kind customer. They are very excited about supporting your business and orders multiple products from you. They find your products satisfactory and become a regular customer. Over time they order more and more products, and you in turn slip in free gifts to thank them for their loyalty. Because of your kindness, the customer starts to trust you and refers you to friends and family. Your customer trusts you and feels like they can tell their friends about your products without the fear of them receiving damaged or defective goods.

This same thing can be the same for a business partner or an investor. Imagine you are contacted by an investor who sees potential in your business and is interested in funding you. You and this investor become close friends and he (or she) helps your business skyrocket. Five years later, you run a very successful business and you are making thousands of dollars every year. Your investor friend may not be a big part of your life anymore, but five years ago you and the investor started a relationship which led to mutual trust. The investor refers your business to other people and you do whatever you can to help them out.

As you can see, trust is a very important thing in business ordeals. Trust is the basis of every relationship whether it is a business endeavour or a romantic relationship.