Yes, quite literally what the title says.

I was out biking the other day, figuring I should get some exercise, fresh air, and sunshine, instead of being cooped up in the house playing Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility all day long. (Though I have to admit I still long for the days when I played Toontown. I did broach the idea of a month's subscription to my mother, which she immediately struck down. I'm already computer-addicted enough as is, I suppose.) So I decided to stop by the nearby park.

A very pressing matter in the town I live in is the bird population. We have astounding numbers of ducks, seagulls, geese, and pigeons. There are now signs at various bodies of water, such as at the reservoir and at the park I just visited, telling visitors not to feed the birds so that they'll continue with their usual patterns of migration instead of staying here permanently to gorge on bread crusts.

In fact, they've gone so far as to provide brochures in three different languages - English, Chinese (Mandarin), and Spanish, to "educate" the citizens about why we shouldn't keep the birds around. Something about how the birds poop in the water, which in turn makes the water dirty and gets them sick. (But wait...If they don't want the birds around anymore, shouldn't they just let the birds get sick and then die of their own accord? Oh, right, they wouldn't want to spread bird flu or some other disease. Or tarnish their reputation with the blood of several thousand innocent birds. Reminds me of the passenger pigeons being driven extinct.)

I saw some of the Canadian geese who have taken up residence at the park, and notice that they'd had their children (they're called goslings, right?). I thought it'd be nice to get close and take some photos of them. Here's a few shots...Sorry that they're a bit on the blurry side. Aren't the goslings so fuzzy-looking?





But while the goslings went on eating the grass (that's what it looks like, though they're actually eating the bugs), one goose stood guard. He stood there looking around suspiciously. Whenever I made a move he opened his mouth and hissed, showing his tongue. One time I tried to approach quickly and he ran towards me, flapping his winds and hissing like crazy. I hastily retreated until I was far enough that he decided I wasn't dangerous. It was actually a little fun, in a twisted way, taunting the goose. I don't want to risk getting bitten, though. I've heard goose bites are quite painful. But it would be nice to have animals that don't run away, growl, or try to bite me when they see me and actually meet an animal that likes me for a change.

Labels: animals, bird, birds, canadian geese, disease, geese, goose, hygiene, migration, park, pollution, sickness, wild animals

Blood crosses. They happen when siblings, or cousins, or some other kind of relatives have children together. It's something that disturbs me a bit. I suppose you could fall in love with a relative, but it's a bit frightening what things could happen as a result of such a relationship.

I heard mention of it in the book called The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski. The Sawtelles, the family upon which the book focuses, keep careful records of every dog they have bred so that no dog will have a blood cross. Blood crosses have sometimes resulted in physical defects, both in animals and in people.

I was reading National Geographic not that long ago (it is one of my favorite magazines, after all, and I renew my subscription every time it runs out) and apparently it seems that King Tut may have been the result of crossed blood...And that could be why he is pictured with a cane (had some sort of foot problem from the blood cross, perhaps? And maybe he had a weak immune system, too, which would have contributed to his death at such a young age). Among royalty it isn't uncommon to have blood crosses. Sometimes it's to preserve political power (which confuses me a little, because if you wanted to be more powerful, wouldn't it be better to marry someone out of your family so you would have more connections? But oh well) and other times people do fall in love with their family members.

There was also a guy who was French royalty who had crossed blood flowing in him and he developed slowly (I think he couldn't walk until 7? Or something freaky like that) and he didn't live that long. Isn't that painful? The odds are against you from birth. If you're the child of two relatives, then there's a possibility that both of them have a recessive gene that could cause problems, and if you happened to be unlucky enough, you might be born with those two recessive genes put together, and you would suffer from whatever problem the gene causes. And you'd be doomed to get cancer over and over again or die early, and so on. (Hmm, I suppose you could end up with such genes even if you didn't have crossed blood, but in that case you'd have to have two people meet who had some sort of similarities in genes, and I guess considering the amount of people out there it would happen, but then again there are a lot of combinations of genes that are possible, too...Well, never mind me, just talking to myself. Really. No one reads this besides my future self anyways.) I guess in that case you might not be able to change your fate. But I've heard this quote that "It's not the years in your life, it's the life in your years", so even if you know you don't have long to live, search for happiness. You're alive, so go and live as much as you can! That's still something I need to do.

I've been concerned about bloodlines because of my grandparents on my mother's side. People in China don't necessarily change their last names when they get married. In the case of my grandma, she already had the same last name as my grandpa, so there was no need to change last names. True, there are a lot of people in China, and you'll certainly meet people with the same last name, but it made me think that there's probably a blood cross, even if it's somewhere way back. A bit freaky to think about. One time I said to my mom, "So that's why you're so twisted!" (referring to her personality) which made her become indignant. XD But anyways, don't be like me, don't joke about it. "Do as I say, not as I do."

My science teacher showed us a website that contains a world clock. You can see births, deaths, illness, crimes, and whatnot. A bit morbid, I guess, watching as the number of deaths go up (there are really a lot of people who die of respiratory infections!) but it's kind of fascinating too. Here's the url:

http://www.poodwaddle.com/clocks/worldclock/

Labels: blood, book, clock, cross, death, family, genetics, health, life, national geographic, personality, problems, relatives, sickness, the story of edgar sawtelle, what if, world

Remember, if you will, the post Money Can Make or Break You. (Or read it for the first time.) My teacher called us students germ factories. I am really and truly getting to see how this is true. Lately, the weather has been rainy and cold, and sickness has been spreading like wildfire. Unfortunately, those few who got sick originally did not stay home like they should have, and thus spread germs further and further. I have been fine up until now, and actually in relatively good health considering my lack of sleep and deteriorating eating habits, but now I'm starting to feel a lot of discomfort in my throat. Although I haven't lost my voice or started coughing yet, it might be only a matter of time. I am as steamed as can be. Unless this is a late punishment for something I did, I feel as if I am being hurt for something when I didn't deserve it, if you catch my drift. I mean, I as well as the healthy students were just attending school like good children until we were cursed by those who insisted on not staying home.

I know there are many reasons for students not staying home from school. This became clear during French class, when my teacher even said, "You should be at home, not here." The kids cried out, "It's our Asian parents!" (Very stereotypical, but I guess it makes sense to them.) The teacher said, "You must make your...Asian parents understand that by going to school, you spread sickness to other perfectly fine people. We are all stuck in a small, confined space with the windows and door closed. There is nowhere for your germs to go."

Then a classmate presented a different argument. "Both my parents work," he said, "so I can't stay home." The teacher didn't find this to be a problem. "You are old enough to stay home by yourself." I think this is true. I just saw a young boy (I am guessing maybe somewhere from five to seven years old) riding his bike, by himself. He seemed fine. What a nice independent young man. XD

And then there is another category of people, such as myself, where it is the student who really didn't want to stay home. One of my friends fits in this category since she went to school despite her mother saying she could stay home if she wanted. But she, unlike me, is more dedicated, which is admirable. For me, it would be nice to stay home, but I think it is too much of a hassle. You have to make up tests and PE and other junk, and it's just not worth it unless I'm very sick.

It's bad enough that there's a bug going around (two of my teachers are ill and one is recovering). But it's even worse that there was a CHICKEN POX warning. My teacher asked a student to run to the office to get some papers to pass out to us. When the papers arrived, he asked us to raise our hands if we had ever had chicken pox. There were only a handful of students who did (perhaps five? Six?) and they were all male. My teacher seemed surprised. "More of you should've gotten it." (Hey, is he suggesting that we're bad for NOT getting it?! Nah, that can't be :p) When I told my mom later, she said, "Of course we wouldn't, there's a such thing as vaccination." (But if that's the case, did those victims of chicken pox not get properly vaccinated? Or did the vaccination fail to work?)

Then the message came in saying that four students in my grade at my school had gotten chicken pox and that we may have been exposed to the disease. Within 2-3 weeks, infected people would start to show symptoms. I was immediately scared because one of my worst fears is disease (particularly something like chicken pox that would really, really force me to stay home from school, and it would cause trouble for my parents since they would have to stay home from work to take care of me). Then again, if I did actually get chicken pox, then it would protect me from getting it again. (Apparently, if you have chicken pox once, you're safe from it, because your body can recognize it and exterminate the virus quickly)

I guess now is the time to quote Thomas Paine's work called "The Crisis"... "These are the times that try men's souls." (And women's, and children's.)

Labels: asian, chicken pox, danger, disease, germ factory, immune, infection, make-up, parents, quote, school, sick, sickness, sore, the crisis, thomas paine, throat, vaccination

Recently, my father was telling me about a lady. He has never met her, but she is famous. The lady was pretty much an unknown person, up until she got plastic surgery. (She said she only got a nose job, but people seemed to think she'd had more surgery than that done to her face, when comparing before and after pictures) Then she started getting noticed and she was even able to become the host of the show Big Brother. So, it seems to me that if you have enough money, then you can go places. (Of course, there are things that can't always be obtained with money, but that's a different story.)

There's always the flip side, though. Do you recall the post ◆ from riches to rags? (It's in the August 2009 archive, if you don't remember it) About how Peter Pan was rich but then because of business problems he quickly lost his money? As the saying goes, "Money comes and goes."

Even in history class, we talked about money. England had colonies because land = power, and also you can tax the people in the colonies. So the king of England, back during the times when the USA was still colonies and not a country, let the colonies do what they liked (to an extent) as long as he got his taxes. My teacher says the king had dollar signs in his eyes. Click for a "visual representation"

Anyhow, as I am writing this, I am not feeling too comfortable. Once my language arts teacher said that us kids were germ factories! I was kind of offended since I wasn't sick at that time. But then apparently one of the people who really is a "germ factory" tried to expand its business, because I somehow or other caught a cold. I have been suffering from a sore throat and either a runny nose or sneezing (depends on where I am and what time of day). I hope it will be over soon (today is the second day of symptoms). Luckily I don't think it is swine flu since if it was, I would have trouble breathing and also have a fever.

The weather nowadays is annoying. In the morning it's foggy and cold, and it's kind like San Francisco (since the fog moves in and out of San Francisco all the time). But then the fog goes away and it gets really hot outside. I wish the weather would either decide to be hot or cold. Seems to me the weather is "wishy-washy".

I remember that one year (I think it was in seventh grade, in the first trimester?) the weather suddenly changed. It became cold when previously it had been warm. I felt kind of woozy in second period, and had trouble concentrating on my math test. The discomfort grew in third and fourth period and eventually I felt so terrible I went to the nurse's office during lunchtime, so I could call a parent to pick me up and take me home. I hope it doesn't happen again this year. I guess I am too sensitive to my surroundings. (Like all those allergies I have)

Labels: allergies, america, big brother, cold, colonies, dizzy, dollar signs, england, eyes, germ factory, headache, king, land, money, plastic surgery, quote, sickness, swine flu, taxes, weather

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

...That can only be cured by gold! Okay, sorry, I'm not Cortes or one of those Spanish explorers who tried to get gold from American natives, but oh well. I thought this was suitable seeing as one of my friends said our history teacher wasn't at school because he had a disease of the heart. "Actually, he wanted to see his daughter's school play," she later said. And for a moment I was getting excited, what a bummer - er, what a relief. We don't want any teachers dying. (Like that time Mr. Blair was all sad and serious and said that when you teach for many years you see teachers dying. Luckily, usually it's just the old ones, but sometimes teachers die of sickness.)

Today we did some dissection in class. It was just flowers, though I was very thrilled to be handling what looked like a small knife. Mr. Brown warned us that if we played with the scalpels we would be sent to the Principal's office and later expelled since scalpels are dangerous enough to fall under the Zero Tolerance rule. So are scissors, according to our school planner's rules section, but I still bring them anyways. XD You have to come prepared...right?

More about the scalpels. Mine had some strange brownish things on it. I thought it was bread since Mr. Brown eats in class so maybe he was cutting bread with it. However, Mr. Brown said, "Don't mind the frog guts, these scalpels used to be used to dissect frogs and pigs." Yikes. They always say the frogs died of natural causes but it seems more likely they were killed for the sake of school. After all, last time I went to Hawaii we saw some dead frogs on the road, which had apparently been run over by cars. Ouch.

My backpack, as well, is a lethal object. Though it may seem like a regular rolling backpack it is actually a bodyguard of sorts in disguise. If someone ever tried to cut me in the lunch line, I think I could try to accidentally run over their foot with the wheels or hit them in the ribs with the handle. And oftentimes when I'm walking in the hallways, if people try to get past me they have to face my backpack. They end up being shoved against other people or tripping. This is my way of teaching the lesson of personal space. :o But I suppose if I ever had children they wouldn't like being smacked by a backpack just to "teach them manners".

This morning I woke up and couldn't breathe through my nose, so I got a tissue and tried to clear it up. Instead I got a nosebleed. -_-;; What a nice reason to get up early. It bled a whole a lot and for a while but I went back to bed with some paper stuck in my nose and finally it stopped. I don't get nosebleeds as much as I did when I was in elementary school, but still quite a lot, especially when the weather is dry. I guess that will never change. I just hope I won't get skin cancer or something due to my multitude of health problems.

I've been thinking of doing some updates to my blog, like changing the layout (it's been here a few months by now, I think) and also adding things to my posts. For instance, I might teach something that I find interesting every time, or I would start writing a story. (I've been wanting to write a book of sorts for a while, but I don't have the patience nor the inspiration. Whenever I get a good idea it's a nighttime or at school and I can't just write it down on my desk or my pillow.)

Labels: backpack, blog, danger, death, dissect, flowers, frog guts, health, layout, lesson, nosebleed, revenge, scalpel, sickness, story, teacher

Today in PE class we were told the policies regarding absences, makeups, jewelry, the PE uniform, etc. Apparently, illness isn't a good excuse because you shouldn't be in school if you're sick. (Does that apply to getting sick because you went to school, since people who are sick still attend school?) Anyhow, I was told that if I want to earn back the points I missed, I have to attend a makeup in the morning on Wednesday. I really don't want to go, but my mom says I should, to try and earn back the points. But I don't want to wake up earlier on the only day I get to sleep in...

So I've decided that if I wake up early enough, I'll go to the makeup, but if I sleep in, then I won't worry about it. My grade is an A- (But only barely!) so I could use the points, but I am pretty sure I could make some it back up with the next project, anyhow. (Haha, I'm trying to make myself feel more confident, but I don't know if it's working.)

Labels: absence, confidence, grades, mile, PE class, running, sickness, sleep

Top ↑