Looking Back Upon The School Year

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Looking back, this year seemed to go by fast. That might be because I really liked this year and that it was probably the best year I've had in this school. It's kinda hard to think of one moment that changed my life or altered the way I think. One thing would be I have more friends and a better relationship with my other friends. Another thing that probably changed my life was the freedom of choosing the classes I take. I liked the option of choosing what classes I took, learn what you want to learn. I was placed in gym for one tri (I didn't choose it as one of my classes).

The next tri I took visual communications technology education. I loved that class, especially when we got to do photography and use the darkroom. I remember how you had to load the film into the canister in total darkness, make sure it was on right, then use the chemicals to develope the film and hang it to dry, then cut it into strips of 4 images and go in the darkroom and use the enlarger to make the final picutres. My pictures were pretty basic even though some didn't develope. In the end I would rather use a digital camera over a film one. If you have a bad picture you can delete it right away using digital, but you have to live with what you have in a film camera, sure there are things you can do in the darkroom to make it better but say your picture is too dark and it was of an important moment. Even though it's harder to figure out I still want to learn how to take good pictures using an old fashioned film camera.

Currently in third tri I'm taking ceramics. It's really fun, I liked using the wheel to make pots, typically your first thrown pot is a think small bowl, then the better you get the more creative you are and the better looking your pot are. They eveolve from thick bowls to skinny vases and pots with unique designs.

Because of this year I'm choosing to take photography in 11th grade, and I've found two lifelong hobbies I can do the rest of my life.

Dead Blogs Walkin'

does anybody still check their blogs?.......i guess the number of comments will answer that question.

The Great Allah Particle

i doubt anyones going to read this post, so this is just for my benefit.

i read the article the day this post was assigned. i think remember most of it.....well just the general picture maybe. the finer details, about the workings of the different particles and the quarks and the other fella kinda sorta very faintly made sense. but i was also watching the tv while i read the article so i might not have been paying much attention to process what i was reading.

on a another note, i though it was cool they could make a thing that huge and under the ground, kinda sounds like an old cold war nuclear fallout place where the government would go if there was a nuclear war. i read a lot about the whole "we shouldnt be spending money on thins, we should be using it do help the poor or fix our economy." well this one is in france, and frankly i dont care how they spend their money. if we built one here in the u.s. thatll be kinda cool i guess, cuz then wed have one too and it would be like a race to find the one particle that supposedly started it all. i remember as i read the part of the article when they described the atoms being shot through the tunnel at close to the speed of light, i thought to myself "what would happen if a human or whatever was in the tunnel at the same time the atoms were being propelled around and around and around?" would you die? would the atoms rip through you? would you not notice anything? would the atoms miss you completely? i doubt the scientists are going to test that one.

the thing that is hard for me to understand is the whole "so small you cant imagine" cuz i cant imagine things that small, its litteraly mind boggling to try to conceive of its existance. its like thinking of outer space. its soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo big and is there even a boundry? does it go on forever? is there anything beyond it? does space turn about on itself, like if i kept going in one direction forever would i eventually return to where i started? when you talk about things such as this and how they act, its almost like magic, it works and behaves in ways we dont understand.

Back to the Future!!!

Looking into my crystal ball i see haziness as to what the future holds for me. Im not sure anymore what i want to be in the way of a career. I have interests and stuff but my interests are so varied i dont know if theres a job for all of them combined. A few years ago i was certain i wanted to be an archaeologist like indiana jones, digging for lost civilizations, treasure, temples, etc. I would practice in by sandbox burring my model skeleton and gently uncovering it with paint brushes. I see pictures of archaeological digs like in an ancient roman temple and i wish that was me thats cleaning the dirt from the head of a bust. I think id need to know a lot of history more than id need to know how nuclear fusion creates energy. but i CAN use chemistry to date things (ie. carbon dating) and for figuring what the material is. Like i saw on tv once these scientist were trying to figure out what really caused the Hindenburg to burn up. they took a piece of the actual fabric that survived the fire and analyzed it using lasers and tests and they found out that it wasnt the hydrogen gas that caused it to burn but the chemicals that they put on the fabric that caused the disaster. Im also interested in stuff like what humans have done as a species everything about us. Biology is also pretty cool, i like to figure out how things work like our bodies, what happens inside and things we dont know it could do. But as of know im not thinking too much about it. Im just trying to good in school and get through my life.

My Most FAV Things To Do

I don't really do much. All my days seem to meld into eachother, with a few notable moments.

One of the things I love to do by myself is watch tv. It's like my escape from the problems of the world......as long as it's not the news, they ALWAYS show bad things that happen. I like to watch my cartoons.....not the kiddy cartoons but more like "The Simpsons" "Family Guy" "South Park" cartoons.

Also I like to be with my family at the family gatherings. I have a cousin thats about a few months younger than me and we've been best chums since we were little. We always have a good time with eachother. Normally we see eachother like once a month but I haven't seen her since........I think Thanksgiving.

Another thing I like to do is take pictures. A few weeks ago I got my very own camera. It's an old one from the 80's, it use to be my grandpa's before he died. I read up about it on Wikipedia and it says it was one of the first to have autofocus. I've used it for taking pictures in tech ed, it works nice. It's hard because you have to get all the functions set and you only have one shot to get it right and you can't see how it turns out untill you get it developed. I like my digital camera better because you can see how it turns out right away, and if you don't like it you can delete it. I like photography because it's a chance for me to be creative, I love to experiment with different settings and lighting and subject matter. I try to make it look unique and not so average. I'll just say this, my biggest pet peeve about watching people take pictures is that they LOVE to use the flash. Even when they dont need it. I dont know if it's because they dont know when to use it and when not to, or what. So I'm telling you this, if the subject is well lit, like outside or in a room with the lights on, YOU DON'T NEED THE FLASH!!!!! Okay I'm moving on.

As most of my fellow classmates said, they like to do things with their friends. I agree. Doing things with friends is better than doing things alone.....for most things. Example, a project is always better when you have friends to do it with, unless your friends are slackers and you end up doing most, if not all of it. Some things however I find are best done yourself. I don't know if it's the lack of confidence I have in them doing it their way, or if it's just that feeling that if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself. But I'm hardly ever like that, I believe in sharing the workload evenly. Sometimes I like to do stuff alone, I find I kinda get in a work mood where I'm really productive at whatever I'm doing. Although if I stop whatever I'm doing, it's hard to get back in that mood right away. I'm done.

My Favorite Chemical Reaction

It's hard to choose one when there are many good ones out there. But if you haven't already guessed by the picture to the right, i like ones that.....give you a specticle. Like the ones we've done this week in science, they've all included some sort of explosion or transfer of energy. Especially the one that Mr. V. did Tuesday that used sulfur and another element that exploded two feet infront of me. That was pretty cool.

Also if the reaction produces fire durring the change, like fire burning in a fireplace warming you nice and toasty. We couldn't have lived without fire. The ancient people, they would have frozen to death, but they would keep warm around a firepit. I remember at my families yearly campout we have a big fire going almost all the time from sun up to the middle of the night. I love to watch it. I guess I'm fascinated by it.........probably makes me somewhat of a pyro. But don't worry I won't burn down the school.

Oh, I couldnt find a chemical reaction for fire but here is propane combusting to form water and carbon dioxide. i dont know if its balanced but I'll trust the source.

C3H8 + 502 => 3CO2 + 4H2O

Math Models Snowflakes

As far as I understand by just reading the article, some mathematicians at UC Davis and the University of Wisconsin in Madison have created a computer program that can create actual models of snowflakes that you could find in nature. I'm not exactly sure what goes into making a snowflake in nature, but you need water vapor and a particle (dust or dirt) for the water vapor to attach and freeze onto. Apparently there's a mathematical science behind that process that scientists and mathematicians are still figuring out. So basically this computer program uses its knowledge of crystallization and factors like temperature, atmospheric pressure, and water vapor density and runs the program under different variations of the about factors and lets scientists see what types of snowflakes can be created under those circumstances. It takes 24 hours to create just one snowflake on a regular desktop computer like we have. They found similarities amongst the snowflake that were made and the ones found in nature, like ones that were rare in nature are also rare on the program and viseversa. The creators had some fun and made some novelty snowflake. One they called the "Butterflake" which looks like 3 butterflies stuck together at the body, I quote "there seemed to be no reason these shapes could not appear in nature, but they would be very fragile and unstable."
I think this is cool because I haven't really heard much about there being a math behind how snowflakes are formed but obviously there is. I don't really see a daily purpose for wanting to know what types of snowflakes form in what conditions, but I guess it's like a hobby for the benefit of science.

http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=8489