Pearsonal Blog Dec.19- Dec.22

This week was a very short week because of winter break. On Monday we had a tone of time to finish up our outlines for our water presentations. After then we went down to the art room and got to work on our scratch of drawings. I think mine turned out pretty good. I’ve done them before but they always had the picture already traced out on the black- top of the paper. This one was a little more difficult but I love a challenge, especially in art. Tuesday we received about 15 to 20 minutes of work time to go over and change anything in our presentations before we presented them that day. We had some difficulty posting it to the PowerPoint slide on Google docs. Ours wouldn’t open, from clicking on the link. When it came time to present it all worked out because we just logged into our own account that it was saved on and opened it up from there. I think we did a pretty good job too. I thought we really showed and explained the point we were trying to get across to everyone. Also on Tuesday Mr. R came back, I think it was a bit of a shock to everyone, but we all just welcomed him back and went on like nothing had happened. I’m pretty glad he’s back, before when he was gone the social studies part of the academy was going downhill, I think. On Wednesday Mr. R explained to us what we were going to be doing for our final project for Academy. I thought it was pretty cool and also very creative. I like how we get to create whatever project we want all by ourselves. I think this is going to be very fun to construct. On Thursday we went into Mr. M’s room to finish up our crystal lab that we started about a month ago and also write a reflection relating to ours. Then we went back to the Academy room and this guy that I’ve never seen before or herd of, that was Mrs. Millers sub, gave us a lesson on commas. He was absolutely hilarious. I wish he was one of our academy teachers for good. He just made learning about commas so fun and I really thought that even though I was having fun and laughing, that I really learned about commas. Before I really didn’t understand them and never realized why we really needed them when writing. After the half hour of him teaching us about commas, I really understood. He’s awesome and I hope he comes and subs more for our Academy class!

Comment on "The Burden Of Thirst"

I feel so great full that I have to accessibility to clean fresh water whenever I want it in my own home. I can use the water whenever I please but usually I use it or leave it running when it’s not necessary. Reading this article really made me think about my water consumption and how I don’t really take it for granted and just think that everyone has it and it’s really nothing big. They said in the article that we averagely use about 100 gallons of water every day. That got me thinking, if we cut that down even by 30% we could be saving so many people’s lives in other countries. People in Africa, they only use about 2 ½ gallons per day. I couldn’t believe how they survive on that little. I drink about that much in 4 hours on a hot day.  I think that we Americans really have to be more conservative with the water we consume. Imagine if we did we could be saving so many innocent lives out there especially in Africa. The children in these places such as African do not have it as easy as we do and sometimes I think that people don’t really think about that. Women in African, they have to walk miles and miles just to get a gallon or two of water from a not so clean river and then tiringly, hall it back to their homes. I feel so bad that these women when there so young they have to drop out of school just to take care of their family and get them water. I think it’s so sad that hundreds of African children and adults dye from diseases in these unclean rivers that they are drinking from every day. I really don’t think that we should be debating over whether we should be drinking out of tap or filtered water and how witch one would be healthier. They are both so much healthier and safer than the disgusting, unclean; unhealthy and unsafe water that people from other countries drink from every day. I very glad that there are some organizations out there that are making a statement about this problem and are actually doing something about it. Instead of just staying home and running water for 5 minutes strait just to brush their teeth and just feeling sad for these people. Instead they are going out and helping there country and trying to make things better for those people. I think we should stop fussing about these water conflicts and which would be healthier or not I think we should go out there and try to help the people who don’t even have a glass of water when they really need one. Imagine how many American lives we could save!

Personal Blog Dec.12- Dec. 16

In academy this week we were mostly finishing up the projects for all of the subjects. On Monday we all got to work on the periodic table activity that’s on Google docs. I learned about half of this periodic table stuff last year so I found it really easy. Though some of the info, I have never learned, or heard about before. Then the last half of the day in Academy we got to work on our speech Outlines for English. We just had to fix a few things in it; otherwise it was pretty much finished. On Tuesday in art we were finishing up our final touches on our posters for our water presentations. My group didn’t have that much to do because the first day that we had to work on it we got it completely finished. We just had to fix a few things on the poster like the words and the translucent 3D water bottle that we put on the poster. Truthfully I thought that ours was the best because of the variation of color and shapes on it. After then we got to pic a black and white picture off of the internet. We are starting to do these scratch off drawings and I picked to do a baby snow leopard. I’ve done them before but have never done them the way we are. It should be lots of fun once we get started and moving. After art that day we received more work time for our water presentations. Wednesday we had to complete parts 3, 4, and 5 for our periodic table activity. I only had time to finish 3 and 4 so had to do 5 and home for homework. After just like the other days this week we got work time for our water presentations. Except for Wednesday we didn’t have as long of a period of time to work on our water presentations because at 1:30 the president of Hartland Water Works came to present us with some info that would help us with our water projects. I found what he said pretty interesting some of the stuff I never knew about water. At the end he answered some of our questions that we had for him. It was pretty interesting were Hartland gets its water from, what they do if the water all of a sudden becomes contaminated and also how the hole water thing works around Arrowhead. On Thursday we all split into 3 groups, one went to the Delhart water and Sewer Center, one got to meet Mr.Libscomb and have him answer questions and the last group went and stayed in the art room and worked on their water posters. Mr. Libscomb was very informative, I lost my groups questions just minutes before he came so we made up new ones and he answered them very well and thought out. On Friday we got to finish up our periodic table activity on Google docs. Then we had to take the test for the parts that we had finished. I didn’t finish the Google doc periodic table activity in the time he gave us so I have to take it online. This week I would have to say was a pretty fun week, lots of new things we’ve never done before, and lots of progress made in our projects in all the subjects!

Pearsonal Blog Dec.5 to Dec.9

This week in Academy I was very busy every single day! In every single subject there was some kind of activity that was planned. Science and Social Studies I would have to say I did the most work in. In English and art we also did some work but not as much. On Monday this week in Art we were finishing up our videos, which I thought my partners and I did a pretty good job with. The only problem factor about the project was that we had such few time to complete. Every day we only had about a half hour to 45 min to work on it and the day that we had work time on it all the teachers for Academy were in meetings. The problem with that was that we needed to interview them for a part of the movie. Also in art this week we glazed our crystal clay boxes. I wasn’t able to because I was doing another project at the time but hopefully there will be time next week to. I’m very happy about the way it turned out just in the structure and after I glaze it, it’s going to look even better. We also started doing this poster project to present with our social studies project. We got a group of 3 and I think that my partners were very helpful when coming up with an idea in how we were going to make the poster look. The program that we are using to make this poster is really neat; I’ve never used or heard of it before. On Tuesday everyone took a walk to Bark River which I was not able to participate in because of a bad stomach ache. I was very disappointed but was glad that I stayed back because I wouldn’t have been able to make it to the river.  From what I heard from my classmates; it was very cold and tiring. Also many people were very irritated because well everyone had to fill up a gallon jug full of the river water and then had to carry there one back. Some people made others carry theirs for them and they also made them fill it up in the ice cold river because they didn’t want to touch the water. The reason the teachers wanted us to carry the water back was to show us what it was like for people who live in different countries that have to carry their own drinking water miles and miles every day. I definitely would not want to do that every day. Everyone said that it was very heavy to carry back and I would think it would be hard to do that for a longer walk or all the time. I am so very great full that I live in a place that has running drinking water and that we don’t have to walk a miles to get water. I am looking so forward to finishing this project that we are doing for Social Studies. My group is the Water Bottle Association; I think we have most of our info in our PowerPoint that we are creating. The only problem is that it doesn’t meet the time requirement of 8 minutes yet but we also need to do our outline. So that might make it a little longer. I’m so excited for next week because we get to interview different people who work in the community to find out more information on our topic. This was, all in all, a great week from beginning to end!

Pearsonal Blog Nov.28- Dec.2

This week in academy we did lots for fun things. I thought that this week was the most hands on and most fun week that we've had in a long time. In art we were finishing taping our little movies about the Academy and what we do in it. My partners and I are completly not done with ours. We only got to interview 3 out of the 4 teachers that we wanted to and we havn't filmed all of the different scenes that we wanted to. Every time that we get the chance to film anything the teachers are always in meetings.
This week in science we were working on the periodic table and working with the elements. We were learning about the parts of the elements atoms like the; protonse book was probubly the; nuetrons and electrons. We had to do this paper and answer questions on them. I had already learned all of this stuff from 7th and 8th grade so i found it prety easy to do.
In english this week we were finishing up our Of Mice and Men book. I thought that the best book I have ever read from school. I was always so interesting, there were never any dull parts when I read it. The ending thought really wasnt what I exspected, I thought that they were actually going to live the future dream that they kept talking about. I really thought that they were going to get a house and live of the fat of the land. when george killed him I was really sad and I had my mom read the last chapter and she cryed. My aunt has down syndrom and she acts like that all the time; isnt able to remember things and sometimes gets really mad and it sort of scars you. I just kept thinking at the end what I would do if my aunt killed someone and what the different posibilities would be. I really felt a conection when I read the book which I have never felt reading any other one befor.
In social studies this week we were just learning about rivers and how important they were. Some of them I didnt realize were soo important to the people that lived around it. I thought that it was very interesting what we learned in social studies this week.
This week I would have to say was a pretty good week. I really learned lots about the didfferent parts of the atom and the rivers constribution to the people. Also I forgot to tell you that we got to watch the movie Of Mice and Men if we were all done reading our book by friday. I finished mine on wednesday so I was in the clear. We didn't get to finish the whole movie on friday but what I'v seen I thought was preety good. Lots of my friends who have already seen the movie said that it was sort of lame and they said that it was really borring. At first, in the first half an hour it was kind of borring but got more interesting once they got there job on the ranch. Lots of the parts of the book werent in the movie and also some of the characters were not what I excpected them to be or look like in real life. Such as lennie, they said that he was a big man and when I heard that in the book I was thinking that he was this big fat guy. Also the black stable buck I didnt think would walk with such a hunch back. Other wise the rest of the characters were portade just as I thought they would be from reading the book!

Pearsonal Blog Nov.21-23

This week in the Academy we started this pretty cool project in art. We are making short videos describing all of the different things we do in ILA and how it’s all constructed. I’m not that great and am really horrible at making videos but I’m willing to try my best. Once I heard that these were being sent to all of the 8^th grader from all the different feeder schools for arrowhead I was very excited because I now a lot of them from Merton and am hoping that mine goes there. I really want to show them what the academy is all about because I now some of them will really enjoy it and if it’s around next year, they will probably join. In ILA English this week we were still reading the book Of Mice and Men. I usually don’t like reading books, especially the ones that we get assigned from teachers at school. Usually because they are really boring and what they are about, don’t really interest me. This book is totally not like that. It’s so interesting and I just want to keep reading. I like how easy to read it is. The swearing sort off weird cause I’ve never read a book with this much in it. I’m almost done with the book and am looking forward to how it turns out in the end. I think I have a pretty good idea but lots of people say that the endings exactly what you wouldn’t think would happen. In social studies this week we were working on our "Think Globally, Act Locally" projects. I’m really far behind on it and am working my butt of to try to finish it before Monday. I’m not exactly learning anything from doing this project. Most projects I’ve done in here I haven’t learned that much from. After this long break we are going to be starting a project with these projects. I’m sort off curious on what we’re going to be doing. On Wednesday for science we presented our skits. I thought they went pretty well, except for the fact that I couldn’t hear anything that they were saying. I thought some of the groups did a great job with their props and with their enthusiasm as they were reading of their scripts. I thought that we did a pretty good job, thought maybe we could have had better acting skills as in not reading of our script the whole time. Also we could have practiced it a little more than just once before we presented and also our props could have been better. Now we have to write a paper on all of the different scientist when I couldn’t get anything out of the skits. This is going to be very difficult but I’m going to have to make the best with the info that I already have. This is really pretty much just information on the JJ Thompson theory which is the guy that I studied.    

Pearsonal Blog Nov.7-11

This week I had a lot of fun in Art. We started of the week in Mr. M’s room. We did this experiment to try and figure out what this mystery substance was. He had about 12 out on the tables and we had to go around and say if they were an Element, Atom, Compound, ext. and right down why we thought it was one of those. Then once we found out which substance we thought the mystery substance was then we had to do a test like a flammability test and see if it really was the substance just so that we could prov it was. After you did the test then you had to put all your data into a table and right out a short lab report telling why you though this one substance was the mystery one. When my partner and I went and looked at the substances we knew we were only looking for one that was white because that was what color the mystery one was. Then when we put all the white ones next to each other there were some that we like an off white color so we eliminated those. After we only had about 4 or 5 and just looking at the substances you could figure out which one the mystery substance was because it was sparkly in the light and looked like crystal. Also it was really grainy looking so just by looking at the substances we figured out witch one it was.

Another thing this week that I had an awesome time doing was in art. We are starting this awesome new project now that were all done with all our videos and grid enlargements. WE are now constructing sort off like a 3D model of a crystal. It’s going to be the size of a basketball when we are done and then were going to make it into a bowl by cutting a lid in the top. We have already cut out all of the shapes that we are going to need to make them and now we are constructing then. I have found it really cool how they are all just perfectly fitting together and making a circular bowl at the same time. Im about half way done. Im so excited about what it’s going to look like when im all done. Also we get to glaze it im pretty sure which im probably going to do a blue or brown so that I can have it in my room and it will match.

In social studies this week we had to take a test on chapters 3 and 4 in this one social studies book that we all received last week Friday. I found it really hard to understand all of the talk in the book. It was all about the government and the budget and if I read something that I really don’t care about usually it’s hard for me to interpret it and remember it. The first time that I took it I didn’t do so well. Then we had a retake on Friday and I still didn’t do well.

So this week I would have to say I had a lot of fun in the academy. I hope next week is as fun. There was just one thing this week that I didn’t like and that was that for this one project that we did in English I mean I didn’t exactly mind doing it, it was sort of fun It’s just that my partners didn’t do anything. So now im scared that im going to get a bad grade because of them. I mean I worked for 3 hours on my part of the project and then they only right about 5 sentences and then make me get the bed grade. I didn’t think that my project was that bad I thought it was one of my best that I have done in English. That’s why I think this partner stuff for project has to change or something because all of my partners that I have had throughout all of the projects have done nothing on any of them. I don’t think that’s right and no one’s doing anything about them. They just tell them to do better next time!   

Pearsonal Blog Oct. 31- Nov.4

During this week in Academy i have learned lots. I’ve learned some very useful info and some not so much. We learned a lot about sentence fragments from Ms. Miller and i found it very helpful because im not the greatest at them. The most fun thing that I did in the Academy was in Science. We got to make crystals and now get to grow them for 2 or 3 weeks. I had lots of fun saturating the solution. My partner was great and I think that our crystal will turn out really cool when it’s done growing. We saturated the solution and did the whole lab on Tuesday and on Wednesday we got to take a little part of the powder of our chemical and attach it to a string. Then we attached it to the cup that the solution was in so that the little piece of crystal was suspended in the solution. Im so excited for what it’s going to look like when it’s all done. I really enjoy doing labs in science and am looking forward to conducting more. In social studies this week we learned about the structure of the constitution. Everyone was split up into different groups and had to work on the part of the constitution that we were assigned to. We had to put them in our own words and take out things that we didn’t like or disagreed with. My group had to do the amendments witch really weren’t that bad to do. I hadn’t really ever read through all of them and found some of them very interesting. Then everyone posted them on Google docs and we put all of the parts of the constitution together. I think that everyone really did a great job doing their part. In English we are starting this new book called "Mice and Men". Lots of my friends have already read the book and lots of them said that it was a pretty good book. I really don’t like reading all that much but hearing what other people said about it, it actually sounds good. Also this week we started a new project in social Studies. I don’t exactly understand what were supposed to do it looks sort of interesting but also confusing. When he explain it to us he was sort of vag but hopefully he will explain it to us more this week so that i can get a start on it quickly! Well id have to say that this week was a pretty good week i have learned lots about the parts of the Constitution, sentence fragments, crystals and how they form and lots more. Im looking forward to next week and to what lies ahead!

Personal Blog

This week I would have to say was a pretty fun week. I loved that it was so short, but I mean who wouldn’t. I loved watching and listening to all of the presentations on Wednesday to the school board. I found all of the info very interesting and a lot of it I did not even now. My partner was not at school on Wednesday so I didn’t get to have a station for my topic that we studied and compared. Instead I got to be a greeter which I would have to say was pretty good at. I was sort of scared when I found out that I was possibly going to have to present without my partner but it worked out and I had a lot of fun. Listening to all of my classmates present I found out that a lot of them are actually really knowledgeable and they really did a great job presenting. They knew exactly what they were going to say and new all of their information so well. I was very impressed I don’t think I would have been able to do that good of a job if I would have had to do that. I was very excited for the weekend knowing that I had 2 extra days off of school. It turned out to be an awesome weekend and it felt so good to sleep in everyday until around 10. I got to trick or treat two days in a row. I think I’m good for candy for another year. My family and I counted all of our candy from this weekend and we have 468 pieces!

Pearsonal Blog

This week we finished the Acceptance book which personally was the most boring book ever I mean I absolutely do not like reading but I mean I would have rather read about something else than about college students going to school. We also worked on our presentation to the school board which I think wasn’t that bad of a project. It’s just that it got sort of confusing on what exactly we were supposed to say in some parts of the letter but otherwise it was pretty fun to collect all the info.

This past week I have had a tremendous amount of home work every single day. I feel like I have so much more pressure when I get home from Academy then I do from any of my other regular classes. We keep getting more and more projects given to us and less and less work time for them all. It becomes really difficult at home to go from one project to the next and to the next. I think the well 1 or 2 projects maybe at a time would be a little more reasonable than 4 or 5. It’s been really tough trying to quickly finish all these projects. I could do an absolutely amazing job on a project if you guys wouldn’t give us 3 at a time and would give us more time in class to work.

This week im really looking forward to the short week! I hope it goes a little better than last week went and I hope we get more work time for the next projects that would really help me out a lot!

Personal Blog!

     

I would have to say that this week was a pretty fun week. I really enjoyed going to the Apple store on Thursday. I think really thought that I learned lots by going to the apple store. I got so many facts about the two products of apple that we are comparing, that I think my partner and I are all done with researching. I also really enjoyed going to the food court to eat after the Apple store. Other than getting sick from the Chines food that I ate there it was a lot of fun getting to just chill with your teachers and your classmates. During this week I really liked how much work time we had. I really thought that i got a lot done compared to other weeks in Academy. Also i thought it was really cool that we got to comment on our classmates projects before they handed them in for a grade. I had never done that before and i thought i really helped my partner and i out with how to make our project better. I also thought that it was really nice of the teachers to give us until Thursday to fix up any mistakes in the project like the resources, analysis, graph and ex. The only part of this week that i didn’t like was on Wednesday the testing day because i didn’t feel like i really accomplished anything in academy with such a short class time. The one thing that I thought maybe the teachers should address again is the rule about work time that there should be no one getting up and walking around and there should be now yelling. Especially if someone is taking a test because the days that i had to make up tests or there was a test in academy, people would start talking really loud. I’m usually a really slow test taker and i need it really quite in order for me to do well on a test. With everyone talking it was super hard to concentrate. It would be really great if the teachers could just tell the students to quiet down and actually enforce it because if you only tell them once they won’t stop. Over all this week has been really fun and I’m kind off starting to like this Academy class and maybe thinking that this might be for me after all.

Product Testing

The purpose of the product test was to determine which slipper ( Snooki or Wal-Mart) keeps your feet warmer for a longer period of time.
 https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0Ad9WYTURms0LZGhqOGN2cDlfMWRjcGJoM2hw&hl=en_US

Halie's Weekly Blog

This past week my partner and I have been working really hard to try to finish our project but we have been struggling to do so. Every day we would conduct our experiment and then when we collected our data there was some sort of problem. Monday we had collected all of our data from only our Snookie slippers because i had forgotten my cheap Wal-Mart slippers at home and all of that data was accurate. On Tuesday we did both of the slippers and then someone unplugged our Temperature Prob. before we were able to collect any data. Wednesday we conducted the experiment again on both slippers but then after we were all done and all our data was collected the teacher told us that we did it wrong and he wanted us to do it completely different way. Finally on Thursday we tested the slippers again but the first time it didn’t work so we had to do it 2 times and just got all of our data written down before the bell rang. So as you can see we have not been able to accomplish anything on our project throughout this whole week since we had no data. I don’t exactly understand why the teachers didn’t tell us beforehand that we were doing the experiment wrong instead of waiting till we had finished and then telling us to do it over again. This week id have to say was the most stress full of all the weeks so far i really was over whelmed with all of the homework that i had from other classes and plus all of these achieves, reading and this project and on top of all of it volleyball every night after school till 6 and my coach won’t let me miss practice even though they told us that school work comes before volleyball. My season of volleyball is finally over so now hopefully i won’t be as stressed and i will be able to accomplish more out of school and in school. Overall this week has been pretty tough for me!

Personal Blog

I thought that this week was a pretty hard week compared to others. We got this brand new project introduced to us. We had to find two different products and had to compare them to each other through a controlled experiment. My partner and I have had a pretty hard time this week with trying to find the products that we want to test. On Tuesday we had an idea and we all ready to start going on the experiment until the teachers told us that it wasn’t good enough and that we had to pick something harder to do. But then there’s a group of two guys that are doing the same thing that we were going to do and the teachers said that they were fine which I don’t exactly understand. Then we tried to figure out new products to test and each time that we thought of one that we really liked and wanted to do there was always a problem with it. It got really frustrating after a while but we finally found an idea that we could do an experiment on. Thursday was when we finally started to get rolling finally. It’s going pretty good right now and we have been accomplishing lots, which was an upside. This Academy class I’m not really getting a feel for i don’t know if it’s the projects or the teachers or what it is. If i got to change something about this whole week i would have to say the teachers and explaining things more i feel that i can only talk to one of the 4 teachers to help explain cause the rest whenever they do i have no clue what they are saying. I’d have to say i did learn lots and am now getting a hang of some of these websites finally but this week was definitely one of the most confusing and hardest weeks. 

Personal Blog

     

During this entire week I have learned lots. On Monday I learned about security and how it’s very important. We took a walk through Hartland to try to figure out were the best places to put security cameras where without invading on peoples lives. While we were walking and having fun we were also learning which is how I learn best so i really enjoyed that project. During the week did this project that helped us learn more about Google docs but also taught us about things that happened in Libya. Also during this week we had to put together a project about technology laws in the United States. Then we had to look into our Constitution and find an Amendment that had to do about technology. There were three parts to this project, the first was for social studies and the second part was for science. We had to get two sets of numbers that had to do with technology and put them into a graph on Google Docs. The last part of the project was for Language Arts and you had to put together a reference page with all of the websites that you used for the whole project. This project was supposed to give us different ideas for a constitution for Libya that we will be putting together soon. I science this week we learned about measurement and about all of the different lab tools that we will be using. During art this week we have been learning how to draw a picture using a grid format and how to not think of the picture as a hole or as an object but to instead look at it as it were just a whole bunch of shapes and lines. I thought that it was pretty neat because had never look at a picture that way when I drew. During this week we had a lady come in to talk to us about "College and Career Readiness' she told us about all of the available jobs that we going to be out there when we get to the age when we are ready to get a job. During this week i learned lots some that i didn’t really have that much of and interest about but others that I had lots. I learned lots about Google docs, how to make an APA Reference page, technology laws in the U.S., careers that are going to be available when I’m in or out of college and lots of other very useful information. 

Measuring

Acruracy is how close a measurement is to the accepted value and is the clostest to the true value. Precision is how close measurements are to eachother  and several measurements are repeatedly close. A significant didgit is a number that comes after a zero its really just any number besides zero. Based on my data the mass of 2 Liters of water is 2,000 g based on the knolage that one l Liter equals 1,000 mm.

What I learned about makeing measurements that i didnt know untill today was that you have to make sure that you are accactly presise with your measurements in science. Also you should make sure that what ever you are measuring that us measure it to the nearest 100th because then your measurement will be more persise.     

Ropes Cource

Durring the ropes cource i learned alt about how teamwork really pays of. Getting instructions from my team on the ground made the task at hand acheiveable. The big reason why i wanted to go on the ropes cource was because i wanted to try something new for the first timeand overcome my fear of hights. I also had lots of fun cheering on and supporting my team. I would definitly encourage other people to do it! 

Design a Room

The reason that i wanted to design the room was because well first of all I'v never done it before and secondly i had some really good ideas that i wanted to put out there and this was finally a time that i could. I learned alt about ow presise you have to be in your measurements of the room and the objects in the room to make sure that it fits perfectly. If you don't get the measurements right your plan wont work and you will have to go back to the drawing board. While we were trying to figure out the location for a seating area in the room, we decovered that the measuring tape was of by a few inches, and wow did that make a big difference. Which cause us to have to remeasure the entire project. Also durring this project i learned alot about team work and how using other peoples ideas and putting them all together is better and more efficient.