Lately I have been seeing just how bad people are at the ABCs and at counting. I was doing my piano theory homework. I try to do a little every week (but sometimes I forget or my teacher doesn't assign any. She's a bit on the lax side when it comes to teaching the theory. I think that's why we do "auditions" with a national association instead of a California one, since the California one requires you to take tests on piano theory). I took a close look at one of the pages and realized it was incorrectly labeled.

a.
b.
c.
e.

Where did D go? I know it's a small mistake that anyone would make, since we are all human, and probably no one would notice because it doesn't really stand out. But I still think it's rather silly to not know your alphabet.

And the situation with counting is even worse nowadays. One student said, "Is this really all the homework? It's just seven problems." Another student told him, "There are eight problems. "Well...I just didn't add one," said the first student.

In fact, students are so careless about their counting that the teacher must cover up the number line so students won't use it to help themselves on the STAR testing (California's standard tests that we have every year from 2nd-8th grade, if you're in another state). I was really amazed. I mean, is it really so bad that students can't even count to 50? Really. I can understand covering up maps and stuff like that since it can be pretty helpful sometimes. But a number line...

I always hear it's important to have a good foundation. Being able to count and knowing the 26 letters of the alphabet is something very basic and fundamental. If we pay so little attention to our simplest skills, I fear that we are on the road to disaster...

So I encourage you to spend your free time reciting your ABC's. And when you need to get to sleep, count sheep.

Labels: 123, ABCs, alphabet, attention, basic, count, cover, foundation, fundamental, map, number line, numbers, practice, problem, skills, sleep, STAR testing

I may not have much knowledge of this matter, but I've always thought make-up was meant to be used on faces. Not drawings on paper. But I have a classmate in my Japanese class who uses lipstick, nail polish, and other things to color in strange drawings of female faces. She said that she uses make-up instead of color pencils for Fashion Design class. Two of the people sitting with me keep pulling their desks away whenever she takes out the make-up since they say it smells too strong.

It's kind of funny, but depending on what kind of twins you are, sometimes siblings are more alike than twins are. If you're identical twins then there's no match for you but if you're fraternal twins of the same gender, then it's possible for two regular siblings to have more resemblance than you. I know two guys who look very alike. Not completely alike, but still with enough similarities for people to mistake them for twins. But they are actually just brothers.

I have discovered a song that I find endlessly funny. The name of it is Ippon Demo Ninjin. It's a song about counting from 1-10 in Japanese using various objects like carrots, sandals, yachts, grains of sesame salt, rockets, turkeys, bees, whales, glasses of juice, and strawberries. Unfortunately, I couldn't locate the song, which was a great disappointment to me. I wish I could show you all, but only my Japanese teacher seems to have a video of it.

Geometry really is hard like I had expected. There are some things I know - like how two angles would add up to 180 degrees so you just need to play around with numbers already provided - but there were problems about clocks which stumped me. I hadn't remembered that when the minute hand moves, the hour hand must move too. I really need some practice otherwise I'll be like my 7th grade math teacher, who had to retake it because she wasn't good at Geometry. Then I'll have lost the head start I got by going to Pre-Algebra in 6th grade. (And possibly, the chance to go one of the colleges I've been thinking of!)

I wonder if I have become too used to drinking bottled water. My mom says that since it's the summer, I should just pour some water from one of the really big Crystal Geyser water containers since that would save plastic and in turn the environment. However, out of habit, I end up grabbing a water bottle whenever I feel thirsty. And only later do I remember that I should have filled a cup with water. Probably I will be unlucky and I won't learn to do that until the end of the summer. It's kind of like how I want to sleep in on Mondays but wake up early on weekends, and how when I go to China I only become used to the time zone at the end of the trip. I have some belief in karma and I bet I did something in my past life that wasn't too bad, but bad enough to earn me faults.

Labels: appearance, clock, cosmetics, count, drink, geometry, habit, ippon demo ninjin, japanese, math, oddity, siblings, song, summer school, twins, unlucky, water bottles

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