Due to an astronomy lab we've been doing in my science class, I go outside at night to look at the moon and record the phase and location. In the beginning, the skies were clear, and it was easy to see the moon. But then clouds moved in and I couldn't see it for a while. When the sky cleared up again, I still couldn't find the moon. It was a strange experience. The stars were still there, but the moon was nowhere to be seen. I thought perhaps it was blocked by a building or a tree, but no matter where I walked I couldn't see it.

In the morning, though, I saw the moon. It's just so strange, seeing it up there in that vast expanse of blue sky, instead of in the mist of a black blanket dotted with stars, the way it is at nighttime. I was rather annoyed at the moon, because I am only supposed to record when I see it at a certain time (the teacher wants us to try to view the moon at the same time each night that we go out). It showed up in the morning but refused to come out at nighttime.

In class today, one of my fellow students told the teacher that she had gone out at night and was also unable to see the moon. My teacher then got the attention of the class to explain this phenomenon.

My teacher said, "I have told the moon to go away for a while. Us science teachers are very powerful, so I have made it disappear. Look carefully every night and eventually I might let it come back out again." Another one of my classmates remarked, "I looked in the morning and I saw the moon." My teacher's reply was, "Ah! You cheated! Well, the moon is naughty and it tries to come out before it's supposed to."

So there you have it. A highly scientific explanation for why the moon is not visible sometimes, even without any clouds covering it. (If you want to know the real reason, you had better look it up since I only have a theory about it and it would be unwise to take that as fact.)

I was just looking at a picture of an exploding alarm clock on a magazine cover (Discover magazine March 2010 issue, if you want to know) and I was reminded of what of my "experiences" at Yosemite. It was difficult to get to sleep on the first night. Some kids had not gone to bed and were making a racket outside, or were giggling in their cabins. The heater in our cabin kept making some sort of rattling and banging noises. I kept sweating from the heater since I wasn't used to having it that warm. And then there were the two alarm clocks I had brought. They kept on ticking...My clock at home ticks too, but I never really noticed it. At Yosemite it seemed they were quite loud. One of my cabinmates said she wasn't used to it since she has a digital clock, which doesn't tick. After the first night, though, we become more accustomed to the loud nights and were able to get to sleep more easily. (And anyways, we were tired out from the strenuous daily hikes, or something.)

I have been rather concerned about my ability to remember to do my homework recently, especially the French homework. I forgot to do my French homework and remembered it during the night once, so I got up earlier in the morning to do it. And then today I was supposed to bring sunglasses because we were discussing summer/seaside activities in French class, but I forgot to bring those as well. (Then again, I'm not exactly sure where the sunglasses are, I will have to find them. I don't like to wear sunglasses. Although I like the cool way that they look, they always seem to slip down my face or otherwise get in my way. And I don't like how everything seems so dark or is tinted a weird color.) I wonder if my memory is getting bad or if I'm getting too careless. Both options are rather unpleasant.

Labels: astronomy, careless, clock, digital, distraction, forgetful, french, homework, magazine, magic, moon, powers, science, sky, sleep, sounds, teacher, ticking, trip, yosemite

A while back, my science teacher started us on an Astronomy Observation Lab. We were to go outside ten times to look at the moon and draw it. We were given a month to do a project. Spring break overlapped with the time given to do the lab.

My teacher said that if you were going on vacation during the spring break, you could just reorient your map while you were there so you could still do your homework. She said that one student had gone to Chicago and came back saying "I couldn't see the moon." But my teacher says that she's been to Chicago, and the moon is still there. "The moon is a big dude," said my teacher.

I wonder what makes people decide the genders of things. The Earth is called Mother Earth, and nature is called Mother Nature. But people say The Man in the Moon. Whose decision is it to determine the genders of things? I mean, all objects have a gender in French, and I'm curious about that too. There is kind of a way to say "it" in French, but mostly you would refer to "he" or "she". But in English we just refer to things as "it" so frequently. I suppose this is a trait that sets English apart?

One of my classmates mentioned something interesting to me. She says that when she reads Chinese, she just thinks of the Chinese words in her head, but when she reads French, she translates it to English in her mind. My mom says that when you practice a lot, you end up understanding automatically and don't need to translate to English. (When my mom was first learning English, she says she would translate it to Chinese in her head first, but now she can just think of the English words) But I, despite being so unskilled in Chinese, do this too. When I see the Chinese word for the number one (one of the only characters I can read! Yeah!) I think of the Chinese word for it, not "one". So is Chinese just different? Are languages spelled with symbols like this in comparison to languages with the same alphabet in English? That means the languages with English letters make me feel smarter, because I can translate it to English automatically in my head. XD

I was told a rather unsettling thing by someone. On my school trip to Yosemite National Park, we stopped at a town called Los Banos. I was told that it actually means something like "The Bathrooms". Imagine if you were saying that you ate in Los Banos and someone who understood Spanish walked by...

In history class, I and some other students had a presentation about Mormons, irrigation, and Mexican food. One of my group's members said the names of various foods in Spanish. The teacher later said that she pronounced them quite well and asked if she spoke Spanish. The girl said, "No." A classmate said, "But don't you take Spanish? So wouldn't you be able to speak it?" And the teacher said, "Taking Spanish class and being able to speak it are different matters."

I think that is true. People may be learning a language in school, but can they really speak it? I have noticed that sometimes students have trouble actually putting words together even if they know what the words mean, and that speaking the language out loud seems harder than writing it. I heard that you could really learn the language faster if you actually lived in the country of the language you wanted to learn. (My French teacher says we could learn a lot more in just a few months in France than what she could teach in a year because we would be "forced" to adapt to the country and learn French) I'd like to move to another country, experience something different, but I don't know when it will happen. (My mom has suggested having me move to France for a while and live with my aunt's family, but I feel it would be rather stressful with her rambunctious children)

Labels: bathroom, chicago, chinese, country, english, experience, foreign, french, gender, language, learning, los banos, moon, school, science, spanish, speaking, symbol, teacher, translation

There have been myths about the moon. People have thought that sleeping outside under the full moon would make you go crazy, and there are some creatures, like werewolves, associated with the moon. Words have come from the moon, too, like the words lunatic and lunacy.

I fear that my mother may have some problem with her eyes or mind. On Thursday night, we went outside to look at the sky and try to spot the moon because of an astronomy lab I need to do for my science class. After walking around my backyard and looking in different directions, I finally found the moon. It looked rather unusual; The white, sunlit crescent shape was on the bottom of the moon, not on the left or right (which I had expected).

My mom was staring at the moon rather strangely, and later on, she asked me, "Did you see other white things? Not the part at the bottom?" I said no, I had not. I wonder if perhaps her eyes were going bad or if she was hallucinating. (Well, people do see things in the moon, like animals and men and things like that) Nearsighted people don't usually see funny things when they don't have their glasses on, do they? Is this a result of old age or stress?

Time really is passing, after all, and my parents aren't getting any younger - nor is my aunt's family. Once a week or every other week, my mom and her younger sister will talk over the phone or on Skype. This week my aunt talked a little about her son and his birthday party. She and my mom also discussed their countries' policies about retirement and things like that. (She lives in France, and things work differently there.) I guess after years of working, you're counting off the days (more like years) until you get to settle down.

My cousin has already turned ten years old. And I myself will be going on to high school next year. How did this time pass so fast? It feels like so long ago now, the time when my aunt, uncle, and cousins came to our house for a while. Back then, things were really different. I had still been in elementary school, and there wasn't that much to worry about it. In fact, probably the only thing that bothered me at all was the annoying behavior of my cousins. Both of them were rather picky, if you ask me. One of my cousins wanted to eat ramen noodles, so we cooked her some (I think it was just one of those Maruchan ramen packs, where you get a pack of dried doodles and you put them in hot water), but she didn't eat that much. (I hope her appetite has improved. I know her brother has quite the healthy appetite. He even ate more than I did at a pizza place, which is impressive.) At the time she was quite prone to crying when something upset her, though the last time I saw her she was a bit better in that regard (I suppose people do mature somewhat with age).

Well, my pet fish have been aging too, and so there aren't that many of them left. We used to have guppies, once upon a time, but they are all long dead. Now there are only two fish in the smaller tank. We have three fish in the other tank. The big tank, where the three koi are, is by far the most dangerous. If you open the tank, you will see the lid is only propped up on one side, and even that part is unstable. So there has to be another person standing by to hold up the lid AND hold up the black part under the lid that fits in a slot directly over the water and fish.

I was feeding the fish the other night, with my mom holding up the lid. My mom said that I was dropping the food in the wrong place since it ended up landing on one of the fake plants, and the fish have really bad eyesight (and don't have much brains either) so they don't notice the food. I got some kind of fish tank cleaning rod and was going to use it to poke the fake plants so the food would fall down onto the bottom of the tank, where the fish would have an easier time getting to it. Unfortunately, my mom tried to reach for the rod I was holding and in the process lost her grip on the lid of the tank, so it crashed down and bonked us both on the head.

For a while my head was sore, but as I am accustomed to such injuries, I soon forgot about it. However, my mom was still having a headache later on. I wonder if this is a result of old age. Since you can't really make new brain cells, and you're weaker in general, it's harder when you do get injured. I hope it won't give my mother any permanent head damage. But I fear it is already affecting her. She forgot that I would be staying late after school to take a French test and panicked, thinking some tragedy had befallen me. (Luckily, nothing of the sort had happened.) I probably should have reminded her in the morning, but still, I would have thought she'd remembered. This is a very bad sign indeed. If she can't remember something her only child has to do...Imagine if she had a lot of them, like seven children.

Labels: age, appetite, brain damage, cousins, crescent, danger, eyesight, fish, france, illusion, lid, memory, moon, picky, ramen, relatives, retirement, tank, time, young

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