I can assure you that the President Abraham Lincoln and his story was much more melancholy than Haruhi Suzumiya could ever be. (Anyone recognize the name of that series? I think the anime was pretty known at one point.)

I didn't know much about Abraham Lincoln before I watched a film created by the History Channel in my history class at school. I could recognize him when I saw a picture, and I knew his nickname was Honest Abe, but besides that I had no idea at all...About what kind of life he had lived.

Abraham Lincoln lost many of the people dear to him when he was still young. I believe he lost two sisters (one of them to childbirth) and his mother. His father didn't treat him too well, seeing as he wanted his son to follow in his footsteps and become a man who used his strength to work, but Lincoln wanted to go and get educated and live the city life.

Abraham Lincoln also fell in love with a woman, but she may have already been engaged to someone else, probably making him feel guilty about the relationship. And then she died during a wave of sickness that swept through the town they were in. Lincoln was very depressed, thinking thoughts of suicide, and his friends tried to keep watch on him to make sure he wouldn't really kill himself.

What was especially unusual was that in the movie, it was mentioned that Lincoln could have had a happy life with a family if the woman he loved hadn't died, and thus might never have become the President. It's pretty bad for him seeing as if he hadn't been unhappy he wouldn't have been a great President there.

I thought it was awfully rude since they said he was ugly (my mom said that too). At least he's recognizable. I probably couldn't tell apart most of the Presidents. I can only recognize the more recent ones and George Washington. I don't have much idea about how the rest of them looked...

And what was also strange was that Abraham Lincoln dreamed of seeing his dead body before he was assassinated. Talk about a creepy premonition.

Whenever I feel down, I think about Lincoln's life and then I can say to myself, "I don't have it that bad." (Sorry, Lincoln, to be using your misfortune, but it does help to have something worse to compare myself to sometimes. I try to avoid it for the most part. I used to care more about my grades in comparison to other people but I don't want to be someone who is always asking others "What did you get?" or someone who keeps on panicking when a test comes. I don't even check my grades online anymore, so when people ask me what my score was, I can only say I don't know. XD)

I've kind of been thinking that I really don't know much about most famous people. I can't say I think about them much except for if I'm studying them in school. (For instance, I don't think I know who most of the musicians I listen to look like.) I've never been someone with celebrity crushes since I feel like they live in too different a world. Little to no hope of meeting them. Being as distant and far from my mind as they usually are (except for maybe voice actors/actresses for animes, but that's a different story), I know very little about their personalities, and so it is hard to picture them as people like who I see in my daily life. And I suppose perhaps as a celebrity it might be hard to really get to know people. How do you know that someone doesn't want to get close to you for your fame or money? (Unless, of course, it was someone you had been friends with before you climbed to the top of the pyramid.)

Labels: abraham lincoln, care, change, comparison, depression, dream, fame, famous, friendship, glory, grades, guilt, haruhi suzumiya, money, people, personality, president, recognize, score, suicide

Lately, in my science class, we've been dealing with explosives. We learned how to make uranium bombs in class. The process starts with getting ahold of uranium, which can be obtained by digging up ore from the ground, separating the uranium from the...other stuff, and making it into a powder called yellowcake. (Oddly enough, yellowcake was something I saw in the movie Get Smart.) Then the uranium is exposed to fluorine and is heated up to 56 degrees Celsius, where it becomes a gas called uranium hexafluoride. The gas is pumped into a centrifuge, which works like a merry-go-round/carousel... The heavier uranium atoms move to the outside and the lighter ones are gathered more around the inside/center. The lighter ones are the ones that are wanted for blowing things up. They are unstable and more fissionable than your regular old uranium atoms.

The uranium gets put into a bunch of centrifuges (in fact, about 1500 of them) so that it eventually reaches 90% purity (meaning the lighter and heavier atoms separated well and the uranium is easier to blow up), which is considered "weapons grade". The uranium is molded into a sphere which can be put into a weapon...As for actually setting off a bomb, that's not something I know or am allowed to be taught. o_o;; Otherwise we might not have a school anymore if some student was curious or vengeful. I mean, I think I heard someone suggest burning textbooks in the past.

I heard that you can't mention bombs at the airport, or some other place with security. I'm kind of curious what will happen if I do but at the same time I don't want to get in trouble when I have no intention of being a terrorist.

Anyways, we also watched some of a film called Kaboom! made by Nova. It talked about how explosives were discovered and developed over the ages. I hadn't known before that Alfred Nobel had bought a company that made guns or something like that. People thought he was being a hypocrite since he called himself a pacifist but made explosives, which served to kill people. Actually, he was hoping he could make a perfect weapon that would make war meaningless, but that didn't happen. And Alfred Nobel was haunted by the negative feelings coming from other people.

This kind of reminds me of the situation with Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner, but he wrote against slavery. This led to people considering him a hypocrite. But if he hadn't owned slaves, and had been an abolitionist, people would say, "You don't get it because you haven't had slaves." So it was either people didn't listen to him or they thought of him as a hypocrite. Not the greatest choices.

I haven't done much exploding in my life. Probably the most has been the typical experiment with vinegar and baking soda. Explosions are somehow captivating but are at the same time so devastating. They spread out so quickly.

Actually, I always think the adventure in the video game Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which is called "The Subspace Emissary". You'll see a lot of blowing up of areas there. It was pretty fun playing that, actually. I remember I got stuck on a part where you have to figure out where to move and jump or you'll die. I ended up having to look up how to do it on the Internet...Ugh. I try to figure things out on my own at first, but at the first sign of trouble I turn for help (I cheat like crazy in some games, like Starcraft and the Sims). I used to be so proud because I learned how to find my way around web sites and other things all by myself. I wonder if I'm becoming more dependent as I age, not less.

Labels: alfred nobel, atomic, bomb, cheat, dependent, explosive, get smart, guilt, hypocrite, movie, school, science, super smash bros brawl, the subspace emissary, thomas jefferson, uranium, video games

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