❏    Which do you prefer? Why?
I prefer the one with less sugar as it made me feel healthier. 

❏    Show three ways you can make cupcakes healthier.
I can use skim milk instead of full cream milk

Take a photo of the cupcakes.  Post. (the picture is below)

❏    Consider their manipulative skills and how they can be modified to be healthier. 

❏    Choose 1 to prepare, cook and serve.  Include recipe (ingredients and methods).

❏    Provide reasons why your chosen dish is healthier.  You may use the following nutritional tools (check Google Site):

❏    Healthy Diet Pyramid

❏    Recipe Analysis

❏    Healthy Plate

❏    Balanced Diet 

❏    Food Labels

❏    RDA

❏ Healthy Methods of Cooking 
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PqbWFurZy-16S8ar5pI0uLO0Xg9unhJ1fCY3EwfFt3E/edit

❏    Reflect on the practical test session
The practical session allowed me to hone my folding and creaming skills. During this practical, I also applied my knowledge of plating which I had learnt before. Everything went relatively smoothly as I had measured and prepared the ingredients before class started. Due to this, I was able to focus and spend more time on the process of mixing and baking. Additionally, I managed to organize my ingredients properly by minimalising the amount of space they occupied.

❏    Were you able to manage time? 
Yes, I was. As I mentioned previously, I prepared my ingredients beforehand. Other than that, I made sure that I spent a maximum of ten minutes carrying out each process, etc 10 minutes for creaming, 10 minutes for folding, before carrying out the next process.

❏    Did you face difficulties?  How did you overcome them?
I faced difficulty transferring the cream cheese from the bowl to the ziplock piping bag. I made quite a mess and my hands were sticky. I overcame this by wiping off the cream cheese. Apart from that, while I was piping the cream cheese, my bag burst. I had to quickly transfer the cream into an extra ziplock bag that I had brought so that it would not melt. In order to prevent the same thing from happening, I cut a bigger hole in the ziplock bag to pipe as a smaller hole would result and a higher air pressure in the bag which would lead to it bursting.

❏    How would you have done it differently?
I could have bought a piping bag to pipe my cupcakes better. My piping was a little messy as I used a ziplock bag. Secondly, I could have garnished the frosting with strawberry leaves to make the plating style more creative and less simple.

❏    Reflect on the food blogging process
I learnt how to take photos from an angle that allowed to food to look aesthetically pleasing. I also learnt how to describe my cooking or baking process using keywords.

❏    How useful were the nutritional tools?
They allowed me to check the amount of calories and vitamins the ingredients had and this allowed me to make good choices regarding the ingredients I should include in the dish to make it as nutritious as possible.

❏    How manageable were the manipulative skills for you?
The manipulative skills were simple and manageable. For the practical, I made use of creaming and folding. I had already practiced these skills numerous times, both in school and at home. This practice allowed me to familliarise myself with creaming and folding.

How purposeful were the investigative activities in helping you come up with your final creation?
For the first investigative activity, I tried making an apple tart. This required me to apply the rubbing in method in order to create breadcrumbs. However, my attempt had failed because my shortcrust pastry was too hard and puffy. Hence I ruled out making shortcrust pastry as it was risky and was a skill that I needed much more practice in. For the second investigative activity, I tried making a carrot cake. This required me to apply folding and creaming of butter and cream cheese. The cake was okay, but the frosting melted while I was icing the cake and as a result my presentation grade was low. From these experiences, I decided to tap on my creaming and folding skills as I was better at them compared to rubbing in. I wanted to incorporate cream cheese into my dish as I liked how it brought flavour to the dish, and made it look more appetising. Hence, I decided to make strawberry cupcakes with cream cheese frosting as my final product, as through this, I will be able to apply my creaming and folding skills.

I feel that I have chosen the right materials to depict the right emotion. I managed to bring out the theme “happiness” by leveraging on the certain characteristics and textures of the materials. For example, I used the long pieces of cardboard and tied them up to show the “springiness” of happiness. Another example is the newspaper pieces. I used them to show the “flowiness” of happiness and I am quite happy that it worked out quite well. 

I feel that I could have used a wider variety of textures from the texture dictionary to express my feelings more. For the sculpture, I only used 2 main types of textures, one for the newspaper, and the other for the long pieces of cardboard. For example, I could have made use of other types of textures such as twirling, cutting and more, while making it suit the theme of happiness. Secondly, I feel that I could have made the newspaper pieces longer to show how happiness can “engulf” someone, and that would have been more creative as the sculpture will span from the head of the user all the way to the person’s hip, which is unique and different compared to the usual shape of the sculpture, which usually covers  only one part of the person’s body. Lastly, I feel that I could have been more expressive while modelling with my sculpture to tell a better story about it. As you can see above, I only made use of my hands in the photo shoot. To make the poster more interesting and to show a better example of happiness, I could have made use of the space provided and performed, by doing actions such as jumping or twirling. That would have been a creative and unique idea for my poster as it really depicts what happiness looks like, as compared to my original poster of me waving my arms, which looks rather forced and awkward. Other than that, I could have made my face look more happy and less crammed to convince people that I really AM happy while using the product. 

Meter: 3 beats
Tonality: Major
Style: Operatic. The singer is singing the tenor part.
Rhythm: Dotted rhythm
How does he end the piece: With a sustained high note, and a scale. He does this for dramatic effect! He does this to show his technical ability.
Accompaniment: The string accompaniments ended the piece with a cadenza to show off their technical ability.

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
Context: A disfigured musical genius, hidden away in the Paris Opera House, terrorizes the opera company for the unwitting benefit of a young protege whom he trains and is in love with. 

Tonality:  Minor. There is a dubious mood to the
Scale: Chromatic scale
Bass line: ostinato, repetitive baseline
Mood: Mysterious, eerie, dubious, menacing. To complement the story the song is trying to convey. Organ- nice sexy sound  electric gita- modern

The theme of our lesson today is "music and drama" Think abt how and why this theme is applicable to our daily lives.
- we listen to music everyday
- active listening allows us to find out more about the meaning and story behind the piece of music.

Operas,  musicals,  movies,  all combine. literary,  music and visual. art. What are your thoughts abt the impact of these art genres when they are combined?
They tell us stories and messages about life. People like drama and entertainment in our lives. Additionally, these dramas and operas contain real-life and valuable advice for us to take heed of. These forms of entertainment are able to engage us, tell us a story, yet inform us about the its intended message so that we can be persuaded in a subtle way and hence learn from it.

What value have u learnt today and how can you apply it? 
I have learnt that the songs in a movie, be it background or theme song, can tell us a lot about the movie itself. It tells us about its tone eg. whether it is a cheerful or sad show. The tempo, rhythm and tonality of the music used plays a huge role in telling the story. Theme songs/ background music in a major key with a fast tempo shows that the movie is a happy and cheerful one. However, theme songs/ background music in a minor key with a slow tempo sets the mood of a sad and melancholic movie.

No, I do not think that this is a lack of national identity. Singapore is a country with a multi-racial society, with 3 main races, namely Chinese, Malay and Indian. Individually, racially, we have many traditional folk songs. However, the hard bit is to combine all our songs, with language barriers in mind, to form a whole new national folk song that captures the idea of national pride and identity in Singapore.  

eg. concerts, where fans will buy tickets to attend them and buy merchandise so the artists can make money through the music they produce. when they gain streams on spotify, somehow they will earn money, hence contributing to the gdp of the country.  additionally, jingles in advertisements will attract potential buyers to buy the products. 

How has music’s role in the economy changed with time?
in the past, there were no streaming platforms such as youtube and spotify so artists could only make money through concerts and the radio. however, now, streaming platforms such as youtube and spotify allow artists to make more money as the more streams they get, the more money they receive.

Product/Service to be advertised/presented: cat food  

Criteria (description of image, attitude, intentions) : cat treat that gives cats energy boost (like an energy bar) and provides them with sufficient nutrients for the day

Target audience : cat owners whose cats are lethargic and weak, cats in general 

Duration: 20 seconds 

Charges ($) for Music/ Visual : $4

Date of contract: 22nd April

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NqoVMOsTwWAChzd4T6qfJY2hMuxF8fU_/view?usp=sharing

3) What would you expect for the next lesson?
I will expect to maintain my hygiene practices in order to prevent food-borne diseases to spread through my food.