There's lots of things on this planet that are unique to it. The most obvious one is, of course, life, for as far as we know, Earth is the only place with living things. But having all this life also has its downside.

Like all the waste.

I'm sure you've seen some of it. Dog poop left next to sidewalks because dog owners don't bother to pick it up. And most certainly your own waste in the toilet. (I know it's disgusting to talk about that, so I won't dwell on it.)

And not just the sort of waste that animals naturally have to get rid of. Us humans have really changed. We used to live as hunter-gatherers. Then we figured out that we could use plants to our advantage by planting them on purpose and raising them until we could harvest them. Eventually we didn't have to think about survival all the time, so we were able to explore other things that interested us. We drew and painted, we sang songs and made instruments, we came up with religions and we tried to treat diseases and we came up with all sorts of inventions to speed things up. We wanted more time to ourselves. We came up with the printing press so people wouldn't have to painstakingly copy text. We hitched carriages to horses, and then we came up with cars, trains, and planes. We turned from writing letters to calling each other on the phone to emailing, and nowadays many people send text messages.

Faster, faster, faster. It's all getting too fast now, I think. I feel like there's never enough time. Everything is rushing on by. I used to be such a big fan of Pokemon. I used to await every new game eagerly, counting down the months and weeks and days. Now I don't even know about the most recent starter Pokemon. I got caught up in other things and didn't have the time to keep up with Pokemon anymore. I guess I gave up. Sometimes if I have the free time I'll pick up an older Pokemon game like Pokemon LeafGreen (which is for the Gameboy Advance. Do you remember when that was the main handheld for Nintendo, back before the DS came out?). But other than that, my old devotion for Pokemon seems to have died. It's only ever stirred up again when I see something on the Internet that makes me remember those good old days.

And since we always keep replacing our older things with newer stuff, the old things get forgotten. We leave them to collect dust in our houses (I am very guilty of that) or we throw them out. All of it really does pile up. We've got so much of it in some places that you'll see nothing but trash. The Earth is big. But don't forget that there are many, many people, too. And all those things we threw away and gave up on have to go somewhere. They stay right here on this planet. They don't magically wink out of existence, and it's not like we send all our trash into Outer Space where we can forget about it.

You don't have to become a vegetarian or never buy anything ever again. Just be a little mindful about what you do. If you see some trash on the ground or if you have some of your own, throw it away so it won't somehow get into a river and get eaten by a whale who will later end up washed up on the beach with a bunch of plastic bags inside it. If you see something and suddenly feel an urge to buy it, think for a moment whether it's something you'll treasure forever or if it's something you'll buy and never touch again. (I used to be pretty spendthrift, but nowadays I hardly buy anything. But that's mostly because I want to save money now so I can retire earlier) If you're taking a shower, even if it's cold and you don't want to get out, be a little braver and step out. (This is definitely something I need to work on.) And if drink bottled water, switch to a reusable one. I'm doing that myself in the near future.

If you have some time to spare on a weekend, don't just sit in front of your computer screen and go on the Internet, which is what I'm doing at the moment. When next September rolls around, you might want to consider taking part in cleaning up a creek or beach or some other waterway (I did that just the other day, for a school project, and thought it wasn't bad. At least it's fun to get to hold one of those trash grabber things). You'll get some fresh air and find some rather interesting garbage lying around. Just do a little something...To save the world, or to feel good about yourself, or because seeing waste is such an eyesore, or, as I would say, because you're alive and you ought to do more than just take up space. I've been doing that for all these years. But at least I can still salvage the future.

Labels: change, coastal cleanup day, earth, future, help, humans, invention, memories, planet, pokemon, speed, stuff, time, trash, waste, water bottle

Secret might not be the right word in this case, seeing as I see bees in public places like near the post office and at schools.

I just felt like using this title. I once read a book called The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. (Unfortunately, I can't quite remember how the ending went because it was a few years ago. I guess if you read a lot of books and if you get distracted by daily life, it's easy to forget the specifics of books you've read.) Apparently there's a movie now, too.

Some time back, I was at the place I usually spend my brunch break at school, when it seemed that a few people were looking at something. I heard someone say, "Oh no! You've killed it!" so I went over to investigate. It was a very weak-looking bee on the ground. It was still alive, but it was unable to fly and grew more and more pitiful until it couldn't even bother to twitch a leg. One of my friends and I tried to bring it back to life, and transported it using a stick to a leaf. It seemed like the bee was unable to hold on to the leaf - it slipped downward little by little, and we became fearful that it would tumble in to the bushes, never to be seen again. But it seemed to regain some semblance of life and started to move a little.

We tried to put it on a flowering tree, but the bee was not interested and fell onto the ground. Then another girl came along, seemingly out of nowhere, and picked up the bee with her hands. The bee seemed to be much more energetic upon being touched by a human and began to move actively. The girl started to walk off, so we followed her to the grass field, where she set the bee down on the grass.

Today I came across another bee, though it was not so close to death as the one I had seen previously. It was still moving along, though it seemed to also be unable to fly. My friends and I tried to get it interested in a flower, but the bee was not interested. It would turn and change directions every time we shoved the flowers in its face. We also tried leaves and sticks but the bee would fall off every time we tried to move it from one place to another. One time it seemed as though we had been successful, as the bee was finally displaying interest in the flowers, but then the bee fell off again. My friend insisted on handing whatever stick or leaf the bee was climbing on to me because she feared the bee would sting her. I think it's fine as long as the bee is unable to move quickly and if you avoid the rear end of the bee. After seeing the girl from before handle a bee, and as they seemed to get along quite well, I am less fearful of bees (at least, bees that are walking on the ground, not the very active bees flying about at the speed of light).

I am hoping to use such logic to convince my mother to let me have a dog. If you are not familiar with something, it is not unusual to be fearful of it. In fact, I was intimidated by dogs, but I've met several of them and realized there is nothing to worry about (except for perhaps abused dogs and dogs with rabies). I've petted dogs and been licked by them and they have not bitten me. Be sure to pay attention to body language of animals, though...If a dog is growling at you, it's best to keep away from it.

My mother hasn't really been around dogs, and she dislikes them. I think it also has to do with my grandma getting bitten by a dog. I wish my mother would give dogs a chance and spend some time with them. She might feel more kindly towards them if she'd only interact with them a little. (If she still dislikes dogs after that, then I can't hold it against her.) My mom continues to say that I can have a dog...When I'm a responsible adult. That will still be quite a few years away. And I'm not patient. Especially when I could die anytime and lose my chance forever.

Labels: bees, bite, book, chance, danger, death, dog, family, fear, ground, humans, insects, interact, life, safety, sting, stubborn, the secret life of bees, transportation, wish

That kind of rhymes, considering the way that Yosemite is pronounced.

I've been wondering for a while now why Yosemite is pronounced the way it is. It's pronounced like "Yo-seh-mi-tee". I think that's rather misleading. On the lost and found sign for the Yosemite trip, Yosemite was misspelled "Yosemity". So wouldn't it make more sense to pronounce the name "Yo-seh-mee-teh"? But I suppose what makes sense isn't necessary how things work out.

While I was at Yosemite, I led a very different lifestyle from what I live at home. I spent much more time outside moving around. I almost always wore multiple layers to keep myself warm (except for the times that I became hot from hiking and skiing). I had to get used to having a heavy backpack on my back (I know you're not supposed to pack a lot, but I brought anything I thought I might need, like extra socks, a rain poncho, and gaiters - I never even used the gaiters), since usually I use a roller backpack. I had to adjust to having little sleep and to constantly having dry skin. (But some of my skin problems weren't as bad at Yosemite. My mom says it was because I took short, cold showers, which is better for your health, not like the warm, long ones I take at home)

And all this exercise was a good thing. It helped me build more strength, and I was surprised at how long I lasted, even if I wasn't a fast hiker. It's weird, but I had a different sort of appetite at Yosemite than I have back home. At home I get hungry quite often and I end up eating too much (better keep me away from the almond crunch!), but at Yosemite I sometimes lose my appetite, while at other times I am just moderately hungry, and don't eat very much, but it's enough. And I had to eat celery, which I never ate back home (it's not too bad, I guess, I always thought it must be terrible since people eat it with PEANUT BUTTER and I'm allergic to that). All this exercise made me lose some weight and made me feel better about myself since I could eat more and know I would burn it off, so I wouldn't have to worry about rationing myself (which I've been doing unsuccessfully, I always end up with too much food in one way or another. Eating is something of comfort, after all).

When I got back home, I realized how little exercise I do in comparison. In Yosemite, we might stop once in a while, but other than that we spend a lot of time standing or walking or climbing up something. At home, I am indoors a lot, sitting down, doing some work that requires me to stare closely at something, rather than getting natural light, which is better for my retina or something like that (I can't say I know the specifics about eyes, so don't ask me). And I actually eat more at home, or at least it feels like that. I wish I could always live the kind of lifestyle I had in Yosemite, being active, and being in the outdoors. That's where we are all supposed to be, but us humans have built walls around ourselves, put roofs over our heads, surrounded ourselves with technology to make our lives easier. In some ways this is good and in others it is quite saddening.

I hope that I never forget the experiences I had at Yosemite. I think it may have been one of the only times I ever really got close to nature. One day, when we were hiking at nighttime, a chaperone told us all to turn off our flashlights, be quiet, and stand still. We looked up at the sky, and it was amazing. The sky was really dark, and it was speckled with beautiful white stars. I have never seen so many stars at one time in my life, because in the town where I live, you can't see so many of them (unless you go out late at night, which I don't; in Yosemite it was only maybe 9 pm when you could see all those stars). Humans have affected the world so much that it becomes harder to see stars, but at least now I know there are still havens, still precious places where you can see night the way it is supposed to be seen.

I'd like to get a telescope. With one, I could take a much closer look at the night skies. I have heard that there are times when you can see other planets, such as Venus, and I want to try that. And there's eclipses, too; I didn't pay all much attention to them in the past. But now I think I'd like to see one sometime.

There are so many marvelous spectacles I have yet to witness in the world. I wonder if I will ever get the chance to see them all. I once heard that there were two people who were hospitalized because of problems with their noses. One had his/her problem fixed, and left the hospital. The other had some sort of terminal illness, so he/she traveled and did things that the other person didn't do (and probably never would). Sometimes you have to realize how little time you really have left on the Earth to make full use of it.

Labels: appetite, backpack, change, eating, health, humans, indoor, life, lifestyle, nature, night, outdoor, pronunciation, shower, skin, sky, stars, time, weight, yosemite

I know, probably there are a lot of blog posts of mine by now which are somehow or other related to death. Sorry, but it seems like it's following me. Or maybe I'm following it. I am probably superstitious now since I spend my time counting crows.

I had better get to the point. I always keep a flashing keychain on my backpack. The keychain has my name on it, and so I don't need to bother introducing myself, or if people forget my name, they can just glance down there (theoretically...). It is solar powered and one side says Hearst Castle since that's where I got it from. Hearst Castle is a mansion on a mountainside in California. Pretty nice place, wish I had swimming pools and a view of the ocean like Hearst had when he was alive.

Well, the keychain has served me faithfully for more than a year, not far from two years. But age has taken its toll on the keychain. The little part that keeps the keychain attached to its ring has been eroding. I jerked on my keychain too hard (I am too lazy to properly zip my backpack, so I just pull the keychain, since it is attached to the zipper) and a tiny part broke off. It was basically the last straw that broke the camel's back since the keychain fell off. I managed to get ahold of it so I wouldn't lose it but it seems that it is the end for the keychain unless my mom comes up with a way to fix it. (She is the person in my family who is best with little things like sewing and origami and whatnot so we leave it to her. I mean, I have trouble buttoning my shirts and tying my shoelaces...Ironic considering I am a fast typer. You would think my hands would be nimbler.)

I had convinced myself that I was going to make changes in my life this year, so I have been trying to become a more open and charismatic person, but that is not going too well. I won't give up, though! Just like I don't give up on trying to convince my mom that I should have a cat or dog. I think it makes me an admirable person if I keep trying. :p Or maybe it just means I'm too stubborn like my grandma. Well, as a result of these changes, at lunchtime I went into my old teacher's classroom so I could see what happens during Debate Club. I had never really joined clubs much (I tried MathCounts because my mom wanted me to, back in sixth grade, but it was too hard for me to understand. It was funny when someone tried to show the area of a grape, though. And then there was the time I tried to join the Go Green Club last year but I got intimidated since there weren't enough chairs and I didn't know anyone) but now I was curious and I got up the nerve to go in. It was very loud, that's for sure. Two of the students, who were supposedly in charge today, kept banging the weird hammer the teacher has to keep order. We were supposed to be debating whether swine flu is overblown. It wasn't really a formal debate like what I did in the summer once, but oh well. I suppose it was interesting in its own way, even if all I did was listen and not talk. I guess I might go again unless French Week committee meetings get in the way.

When I was walking home not long ago, I saw a blimp in the sky. It said "23andme.com", "Personal Genetics", and "Join the research revolution" or something like that. I guess advertising things on blimps works on people like me, since today I actually went on the website out of curiosity. The Human Prehistory: Prologue video in the Genetics 101 section is not bad. It would have been nice if I learned about humans by watching videos like that back in sixth grade...

Labels: 23andme, broken, club, death, debate, debate club, discord, genetics, hands, hearst castle, history, humans, keychain, stubborn, swine flu, video

This question plagued me because I went to Trader Joe's one weekend (we were entertaining guests at my house and needed some dessert to feed them). By the entrance to the store were some plants for sale. The little white sign next to it said oriental lilies, but they looked plenty like tulips to me...Maybe it was the wrong label, or the tulips label had fallen off or was stolen. Here are pictures comparing the two kinds of flowers.

Oriental Lily


Tulip


See, not really like each other, hm? At least different enough to be able to tell them apart. I had been planning to ask about it (since some of you may have gardener friends or relatives) but I guess a simple image search did the trick here.

We are still going on with Human Growth and Development education in my class...It is getting a little old now, having to watch videos of developing fetuses and little cells which look like either tadpoles or some part of an onion. We have moved on to hearing about HIV/AIDS. This part of the year always freaks me out. I have a strange tendency to be frightened by the mention of any dangerous disease. See, HIV is especially bad because 1) It has no known cure, only medicine that can "slow down" the spread of the disease. 2) It can be passed on without knowing about it, if someone didn't realize they had HIV. 3) It can be passed on from parent to child! How horrible, if you're a child with HIV, having to eat many pills a day, and you'll probably die anyways after some years. 4) It hijacks your immune system. 5) It is a virus, not a bacteria. (I mean, viruses aren't even living organisms... I wonder how they came into existence in the first place)

My teacher showed us an amusing book that is teaching people about the importance of commas. I'm sure you have some idea of how to use them: When listing things in a sentence, or separating parts of a sentence (like taking a breath if you're saying it out loud, sort of?), or right after saying Dear so-and-so in a letter...You get the point. Except people tend to misuse the comma a lot. So an author wrote a book called Eats, Shoots, & Leaves. The author is Lynne Truss, the illustrator is Bonnie Timmons. Look at these two sentences. (May not be exactly the same as in the book)

Panda - A bear-like animal originating in China. Eats shoots and leaves.

Panda - A bear-like animal originating in China. Eats, shoots and leaves.

The meaning is drastically changed depending on whether you put a comma at all and where you place it. The first sentence is correct, since pandas do eat shoots and leaves (bamboo, to be more specific). But the second sentence means the panda should eat something, shoot with a gun or bow and arrows, and leave wherever he/she is. (I hope you got the joke. If not, the author has failed)

Labels: AIDS, comma, comparison, disease, flowers, grammar, hgad, HIV, humans, immune, language arts, oriental lily, panda, sickness, trader joe's, tulips, virus

It seems as if everything is hardy and won't die easily. Back when I went to Alaska on vacation quite a few years ago, I got some free rings which will turn color in the sunlight because of the ultra violet rays. It's kind of like solar energy but used as decoration and not electricity. It was from a store called Del Sol, which can be found in Hawaii as well, not just Alaska. And I think there might have been one in Las Vegas or some other place. You can get t-shirts, bags, and other things which will become colorful under the sun's rays. Anyhow, those rings still work even all those years later. I thought this was surprising. Batteries decay over time but apparently these are still top notch.

I've been reading a book called The People of Sparks. I picked it out for an activity we're going to do in language arts, actually, but that doesn't mean it's not a good book. It's the sequel to a book called The City of Ember. Though some writers have a more sophisticated style than Jeanne DuPrau, that doesn't mean her books aren't meaningful. I'm not sure which book of the series I prefer. (There are actually four books in the series but I haven't read the other two yet.)

In the books, there is something called the Disaster that happened to mankind. People kept fighting over things like religion, food, and land, and there were billions of people and dangerous weapons like bombs and guns and tanks. It got out of control and a lot of people died. Then three epidemics of diseases came and decimated the population further. Only a few were left and some of them went underground to make a city called Ember, which was powered by electric lights. Other people tried to scratch a living on the Earth's surface. One of the settlements was called Sparks. The reason why Ember was started was to make sure there would always be people on Earth. They were given instructions on how to reach the surface, but it got lost over the years until the main characters of the City of Ember found it.

The Ember people and Sparks people joined together since the Ember people had no idea what things were on the surface. (Seriously! They thought "sun" was a word for a floodlight since they'd never seen it before.) They were all weak and pale-skinned and small because they'd lived underground so long. The people of Ember and the people of Sparks didn't get along since the people of Sparks were angry about having to share their food (it's hard to feed your own population, let alone double) and the people of Ember were angry because they weren't getting enough food. Eventually other problems arose, but of course, like most books, it was resolved.

What made me think was how the humans destroyed themselves in the end. I wonder if this could happen to us. Right now we have all these amazing things - air planes, computers, cars, air conditioning, machines to do our work in factories instead of people (well, in China it's mostly people, but that's because of the necessity of providing jobs for so many human beings). But we can't forget what was here before we came while we invent new technology. As said in The People of Sparks, "People find it easier to be bad than to be good. One bad thing leads to another, and worse things happen until a Disaster arises." (Not the exact words, but that's the gist of it.) I wonder if life would go on without us if humans were exterminated, or perhaps it would make a new start again, just like it always does. But what if it didn't? Dinosaurs never showed up after they all died of cancer from the huge meteor that hit Mexico. I guess it's all yet to be determined.

I know this was an awfully long and rambling post about one basic subject. Sorry if this bored you.

Labels: alaska, choice, del sol, future, humans, sunlight, survival, the city of ember, the people of sparks, war

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