The story goes that Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden up until Eden was convinced by a snake to eat an apple from a tree. She wasn't supposed to, so she and Adam were thrown out of the Garden of Eden. (Well, I'm no expert, so if you really want to learn more about the "first humans", ask someone else.) But it looks like such a thing could happen for robots too.

I've heard that artificial skin that can actually feel is being developed. That's all well and good, but then I was watching the Colbert Report on TV, which is something rare, considering that my dad has not watched either the Colbert Report or the Daily Show for a long time, and because I myself hardly ever watch TV, at least the channels (I do watch anime on DVDs, but that's about it). He was saying that if robots could have skin, then that would mean they could be naked, which would then me they could feel shame, like humans do.

There are some stories out there about things that aren't human but which are similar to humans or want to become humans. For instance, there's Chobits, in which there are Persocoms, which are designed to be like humans but aren't human. And then there's Eureka Seven, which I just finished last week (good anime, by the way, although 50 episodes is a bit longer than I prefer, but it was worth it). Skip to the next paragraph if you haven't watched it and don't want to see a spoiler. Eureka, one of the main characters, isn't human; she's actually a Coralian, made by the Scub Coral, an intelligent life form which is not human.

I wonder if we're ever going to make something that is so close to being human that we can't really tell it apart from a human. Anything is possible. I wonder if that would actually happen in my lifetime. Or if it would happen many years from now. Or maybe never, after all.

Anyhow, when I was watching TV, I was pretty bored. I don't really understand how people can watch a lot of TV. It seems too passive. I hate sitting there doing nothing and then getting annoyed by the commercial breaks. I mean, even at school, I have to keep my hands busy. I often do homework in class, which I don't advise that you do, because sometimes the teacher will actually teach something and then you'll miss something important.

But anyways, TV was such a bore. Maybe I'm not watching the more interesting channels; I kind of left it up to my dad. The only channel that I like a lot is HGTV, mostly because of the interior design shows.

I watched some Friends, and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? (which apparently I'm not, since I don't know which Great Lake bordered three specific states. But then I'm not sure if knowledge of facts is necessarily the right way to judge someone's intelligence. People use the word "smart" pretty loosely.) and Don't Forget the Lyrics. When it comes to game shows, I'd prefer to watch Deal or No Deal, but my dad says it might not even be airing anymore. If anyone knows whether it's still going, please let me know.

I have, however, started watching the Korean drama Boys Over Flowers. I don't usually watch dramas, because they tend to be long and cliched (it's quite common to see a rich person fall in love with a poor person in dramas :\ ). But since I recently finished Code Geass and Eureka Seven, I had nothing to watch, so I figured I might as well give Boys Over Flowers a try.

I'm on the second episode now. It's been pretty entertaining actually. I didn't expect much. (The person who said that if you expect nothing, you'll never be disappointed, is quite wise. I tend to keep my expectations low so that I'll only have pleasant surprises...Unless something is really terrible.) That curly-haired guy is such a jerk, but I guess that's what makes it funny. Especially when the protagonist goes and kicks him in the face. I'd like to do something like that. (But then, instead of being cool, it would land me in trouble. C'est la vie...)

Labels: adam, artificial, boys over flowers, chobits, colbert report, drama, entertainment, eureka seven, eve, garden of eden, human, korean, lifespan, original sin, shame, skin, television, time, TV

If you translated this from French to English, you would get "April fish" or "fish of April". That was what the French class at my school did on April Fool's Day (not sure whether the Spanish classes participated). We cut some fish out of paper and put tape on them, sticking the fish on the backs of unsuspecting students. My teacher even suggested that we try to get teachers, but only the ones that could take a joke.

It is harder to do than it seems. A classmate sitting behind me tried to stick his fish on me several times, but I felt it and pulled it off my back. My classmate attempted on the person sitting next to me, but she thought something was amiss and discovered the fish too. When the teacher came near, one student asked, "Hey, would it be okay to, just hypothetically, stick a fish on your back?" She said yes rather sarcastically before saying no. Then she looked at the person sitting behind me, since he was holding a fish, and said, "Oh no, I'm in the danger zone."

I tried to stick a fish on the back one of my friends, but she noticed, too. It really does take slyness to put a fish on someone's back. (Or you at least need to pick a target that is not particularly observant.) I gave one of the fish to another friend, who then proceeded to stick it in my hair and on my back while I was eating. (Ah, well. No harm done.)

I only made three fish in total, so I had only one left. I wanted to make sure that it would definitely end up on someone's back. At first I tried to stick it on the back of a boy passing by, but then someone came up behind him and looked at me suspiciously, so that was unsuccessful. I decided to try on a classmate this time. He did not notice the fish, so I felt like saying, "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!" (Excepted in a weird accent like Fox McCloud does in Super Smash Brothers Melee. You gotta hear it someday.)

But then I started to worry. What if he never did notice the fish? What if it ended up in his washing machine? I have no idea what the tape would do to a washing machine. I hope he or his mother noticed it eventually or at least that the fish fell off somewhere. (But it would be a shame if the fish got lost. Ah, well, it's not hard to make anyways, just doodle on a piece of paper and cut it out with scissors.)

My mother says she doesn't understand the point of April Fool's. Sometimes people are made uncomfortable or are even hurt by tricks that were played on them on April Fool's Day. (Personally I've never really had anything bad happen to me, which is a relief.) But it's also a day where we can be mischievous to a certain degree and not get in too much trouble for it. I'd like to play a prank, actually, but it'd probably be too risky, like if I did the old banana peel thing (what if a person broke their tail bone or hit their head and got a concussion? Yikes). But it might be okay to draw on someone's face or something. I actually saw that happen at a place I went to in the summer... I did hear from someone that putting ink on your skin shortens your life by a little every time, though. I wouldn't want to be taking away a person's life. D: Already my life is probably short since I have a long pencil in my pencil pouch and it keeps sticking out of the side and poking me. Not very pleasant.

Labels: april fool's day, danger, drawing, fish, fox mccloud, french, friends, fun, injury, ink, lifespan, mischief, pencil, prank, sneaky, super smash bros melee, tactics, tape, teacher, trick

I saw my mom reading a Chinese newspaper, a common activity of hers. There was a page featuring, France, Paris in particular, and I saw a picture of a food dish with the words "Au Chien Qui Fume" under it. I said, "Oh, it must be something like a dog who smokes." My mom read the Chinese translation and said I was right about that. She seemed a little surprised. Well, I guess learning French is doing some good at last. (I mean, I really can't read Chinese...)

Au Chien Qui Fume is the name of a restaurant in the Paris. See if you can understand anything on their website. XD I can vaguely read it...And considering that whoever is reading this right now understands English, you could probably guess at some of the words.

I recently heard that there was some regulation being passed in France saying that you couldn't smoke in restaurants anymore, I believe it was Paris in particular... So then people went outside to smoke. However, some restaurants are open late at night (bars too, I guess?) and so the smokers outside make noise. People who live upstairs above the restaurants get annoyed by it and have complained so restaurants/bars had to close at an earlier time. This made people upset, saying something along the lines of, "It's Paris! The city of lights! And now you're taking this away from us!"

You know, I've always wondered why countries where people smoke seem to have such long average lifespans. France and Japan are both countries where there are quite a few smokers and yet the average life expectancy is quite high in both countries. Perhaps other factors like diet end up outweighing it? (My parents actually question whether smoking is bad, but I don't think that is debatable. I mean, if nothing else, it makes your breath smell bad.)

Friday, being the closest day to Valentine's that we were in school (next week is a week off!), was the day Singing Valentines were going on. Just to get you up to speed if you don't have that at your school, a Singing Valentine is something that you can buy for a few dollars from the school for a friend or significant other. The recipient will be sung to by students from the school choir, as well as a card from the sender and a piece of candy. I didn't send any this year, because I really wasn't thinking about it at all, but one of my friends did send me one.

One of my teachers was sick of all the Singing Valentines. At first I was shocked by his attitude since the singers had probably practiced their songs and choreography, and anyways it's easy for me to respect those better than myself at something, but then my teacher said that during third period, there were 9 Singing Valentines. That's a lot of singing. In my period, one student got 2 Singing Valentines.

There were various groups of students, like a group of people wearing white shirts, ties, and red hats, a group of people with pink outfits and fairy wings, a group of people with plaid shirts, and a group of pizza deliverers. I liked the pizza group the best because I liked their songs. (And they were unique since they had two guys in the group...I bet those were the only two guys in the school choir. It's kind of sad how there's such a huge difference between the number of girls and guys. I wonder if it's any different in high school.)

Speaking of high school, it is really starting to loom near for me. On Thursday, I went to the high school that I will most likely be attending to listen to presentations about science, math, and language arts (since history isn't offered for freshmen, there was no presentation for that) and to get information about the electives offered at the school. My dad says the teachers there are pretty cool, like college professors. I am not sure what to think of this because I'm not that sure about what college professors are "supposed" to be like.

Anyways, the school newspaper looked pretty cool. It was pretty different from my school's newspaper, that's for sure. Does four years really make that much difference? My school's newspaper was fairly amusing - the bad advice column was great - but now it's not even there anymore because Journalism was cut from the electives (Not enough money! Not enough students! UGH!). The articles in my school's newspaper weren't all that long most of the time and some of them were just kind of unexciting, corny descriptions of school dances and rallies. But the high school's newspaper talked about actual issues, and showed the car accidents that have happened. There were also pictures of the crossing guards, which I thought was nice - they should be recognized for their work.

I wonder if I should take Journalism when I reach 11th or 12th grade? I've always worried that it would be really hard work, having to stay after school and interview people and slave away typing articles on laptops. I guess I'm just really lazy and fearful of hard work. I can't always stay this way... (As much as I'd like to retire, it's simply not that likely to happen in the near future. I'll have to get used to studying or working for long hours and dealing with more burdens over time)

Labels: au chien qui fume, chinese, choir, french, gender, group, hard work, high school, journalism, lifespan, newspaper, paris, restaurant, singing, smoking, teacher, valentines, website

It seems to me that time makes all the difference sometimes in the mood of a person. A prime example is my history teacher. Last trimester, I had him for the first period of the day, but now I have him for second period. It's only about an hour difference, but it matters quite a bit. In first period, he tended to be more bad-tempered, though occasionally he did seem in a good mood. In second period he is more talkative and generally more pleasant to be around. Well, they say teenagers' brains don't truly wake up until around 9 or 10 am. Maybe it applies to adults too.

I was pretty annoyed at the homework I received recently. For two of the questions, we are directed to look at page 222 in the textbook. We are studying the Constitution, but page 222 talks about Mormons. (I tried checking the section of the textbook that is about the Constitution. There's not much info) I guess it's referring to the old textbook. It annoys me that we have to use this thinner, lamer textbook. But there's not much can we do. (I heard that California uses a different science textbook than the rest of the USA, and my teacher last year said the national textbook was awesome, and I am upset by this)

I am displeased with the education system in the USA. It is true that some of the best colleges in the world are here. I mean, one of my friends moved to China many, many years ago, and her sister got into Harvard. Clearly, they'd rather come to the USA for college than stay in China. D:

So, to rectify this problem (I am practicing using my vocab words this week, that's why I used such a strange word), I have decided I am going to attempt to move to another country. Preferably, one in Europe, because there are generally higher life expectancys, average incomes, and living conditions overall over there. I have also considered Japan because the Japanese live the longest on average despite the fact that there are smokers (French live pretty long too, though). A woman could live to be 86 on average whereas in the USA, women on average only live to be 80. I tell you, you can do many things in 6 years of your life! So I could be saving myself if I moved. The problem is that the USA does make a hefty sum of money. Liechtenstein, Qatar, and Luxembourg have a much higher GDP, though. (I've been to Luxembourg, personally, I thought it was nice, but there are apparently many pessimistic people there, though Japan seems to have many pessimists according to the Wii Everybody Votes poll)

I was thinking of perhaps San Marino. People speak Italian there, which means I might have trouble getting along at first, but at least French and Italian have some similarities. (One time I was reading a description of some brushes, but it was in another language. I tried to use Google Translate "French to English" - didn't work. Tried "Spanish to English" and didn't work either. I was confused, so I did "Detect language to English" so it would do the work for me. Turns out it was Italian...)

The money is not too bad and the HDI is fairly high. The USA's HDI is .950, I believe. Norway has the highest...And Australia is second highest! Maybe I should move to Australia! They have cool accents there, and they speak English, and besides they make a good sum of money. Also, there are lots of beaches because most people live along the coast anyway - probably too dry and desolate in the middle of the continent - and I love the beach. I want to live near there. The sound helps me go to sleep quickly. That's why I fell asleep quickly the time I slept near the ocean in Japan, even though I was on a futon on the tatami mat. (My mom couldn't fall asleep as fast, apparently she expected it to be painful, or she had back pain or whatever)

I also slept well in Australia despite the dramatic time change. That's surprising. When I went to China the second most recent time (the most recent time I went to China was last winter), I got sick from lack of sleep. I fell asleep during the day and woke up at night. But I wasn't supposed to sleep during the day, so my grandma woke me up on purpose by using an annoying talking stuffed animal. You know, the kind where you press the belly and it talks... -_-;;

Labels: australia, college, education, europe, gdp, hdi, italian, language, lifespan, misinformed, mood, ocean, san marino, sleep, time, time zone

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