My language arts teacher recently decided that we had to give short speeches about our World War Two books, so she's been going over what we should and shouldn't do when speaking in class.

To try and show us what we ought to do when we're speaking, she showed us a promotional video for her friend who is a motivational speaker. It was pretty funny towards the beginning of the video.

He was saying, "What we played with the guys was sophisticated. We had TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES! What can be cooler than that? You had a turtle who was a ninja that you could take to school with you and you could decapitate a Barbie's head with it!"

Then my history teacher decided to talk about a very important thing when you're giving a speech. You have to have a message, something that you want your audience to remember even if they don't really pay attention to the rest.

His example was when we were doing our presentations about historical figures we had researched. One girl (let's call her A) went first. My teacher says that while she was presenting we were all thinking to themselves, "I'm not ready to present. I'm not ready to present. I'm not ready to present...Oh, wait, what was the name? I'll have to ask later. I'm not ready to present. I'm not ready to present..." and so on. And then when the next person goes, the people who haven't gone are thinking the same as before while A, who had just gone, is thinking, "I'm so glad it's over with. I'm so glad it's over with. Oops, I missed the name. I'm so glad it's over with. I'm so glad it's over with." Since everyone's kind of distracted by their own thoughts, you can't necessarily expect your audience to understand everything you said...So you have to make sure they at least get the important parts.

But the secret to a good presentation is something we learned in geometry class, pretty much by accident. A few days ago we were being taught about the areas of prisms and whatnot. While he was talking the teacher walked around holding up a translucent cylinder (I think it was glass or plastic, I couldn't really tell) and we were transfixed by it. He had the notes for the lesson projected, and every time the cylinder was over the projected screen, it looked strange. All beautiful and shiny-like. We were so captivated by it that my teacher said he was heart-broken. He had been teaching for 15 minutes and we were quiet because we were bored and uninterested. But as soon as that amazing cylinder was held up, we became very excited.

So, if you want your audience to pay attention, project something and then wave a magical prism in front of it. It's sure-fire.

Labels: attention, audience, geometry, interesting, mesmerizing, motivational, presentation, prism, projector, public speaking, screen, speech, teacher, teenage mutant ninja turtles, thoughts, trick

Recently, the clouds have been moving back and forth, covering the sun in the morning and letting it shine through in the afternoon...And sometimes the sun is covered by fog, so the light from it is weak. Because of the lack of light, it sometimes appears that people and objects have no shadow, or a very faint one.

I remember once that I heard about someone who had no shadow...Was it a book? Or perhaps an anime? I cannot clearly remember. But that person stood out because they had no shadow.

Shadows are always there, yet people don't really pay much attention to them. One's shadow always follows you around, and imitates what you do, for it is a part of yourself and yet at the same time not a part of yourself. The shadow diminishes and grows depending on light, and although people are taller in the morning than the evening, living things do not wane and wax the way the shadows do.

I am not really sure why I felt like talking about shadows, but I suppose it was just to help me get the writing flow going, if you know what I mean.

For homework, I was supposed to look up George Washington's Farewell Address. (That was the speech he gave when he resigned from the presidency after two terms) It was really long...Well, maybe it just felt like that because I was reading it and not hearing it. Still, it was pretty lengthy, and pretty hard to understand, since it was around the late 1700s... In fact, there was quite a bit of stuff in the speech that didn't have much to do with the President resigned (besides that maybe he was giving the country and next President his advice about the evil of political parties, and staying out of Europe's messy relationships, and such?). I feel a bit of kinship to George Washington, though, because he wanted to stay retired, but had to stop being retired to become President. Also, I heard that the President liked interior design and collected art. (I've been to his house, Mount Vernon. I wasn't overly impressed but maybe I'm judging by the wrong standards. It was old-fashioned, after all, with beds that are really high and all)

I've been to quite a few old homes, like Hearst Castle and Versailles and Winchester House. Winchester House is the most interesting one, I think. It's not too far from where I live and I've been there twice (once on a field trip with a summer camp, and another time for a friend's birthday party) It's got all sorts of weird things like the staircase that goes into the ceiling and a place where Sarah Winchester could look down and spy on her servants (to see if they were gossiping about her or something along those lines? Then she could fire them if they were). Some parts of the house would make you uncomfortable if you're claustrophobic, though. The guides tell people not to wander off and open doors because you could get lost, and never be found...

Another cool place would be Mystery Spot, which I also visited as part of summer camp one year. (The same summer camp that allowed me to see Winchester House, in fact.) It's a place that is really...weird. I forget what caused it, I'm afraid. But sometimes things are sideways and gravity is really strange. That's why it's called the Mystery Spot, I suppose. It's very mysterious.

I had a question, and if you happen to have the answer right on the tip of your tongue (figuratively, of course; if you talked to me I wouldn't be able to hear you unless you're next to me), please enlighten me. I've been looking for a jacket for my coming trip to Yosemite, and I've been wondering what the difference is between "water resistant" and "waterproof". Personally, I think it's the same thing, but my mom thinks that water resistant isn't as good as waterproof. I have no idea. (Unless you don't know either, don't bother looking it up, this is just if you already know it...)

This is something kind of random, but my history teacher has all sorts of odd songs. There was one that seemed to talk about elements (the sort that you find on the Periodic Table), and there was one that was like the 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall song, and just today I heard some lyrics in a song that went like, "God is great, beer is good" or something. D:

Labels: beer, claustrophobia, elements, george washington, god, house, light, mount vernon, mystery spot, president, retirement, sarah, shadow, songs, speech, water resistant, waterproof, winchester, writing

I saw something pretty interesting on television recently. The TV show (probably BBC world news or something, I dunno) was talking about a lady whose medium of art is sand. She actually uses sand to make her art. I thought it was really amazing, and I figured I'd share it here too. The name of the lady is Kseniya Simonova. Click here for a video

I was actually going to name this post "footprints in the sand", but then again, that wouldn't make sense. But that does remind me, I watched a good anime at least a year ago, and its name is H2O: Footprints in the Sand. It's about a boy who was blind. And then that reminded me of something else, a webcomic called Ne Sori. I heard that it means My Sound in Korean but I have no idea if that's true, what with my very minimal knowledge of Korean. Click here for Ne Sori. It's the first page. To go to the next page, click Next. Ne Sori is about a boy who can't speak, I think...

My house has been acting up again lately. Suspicious things have been happening a lot. The ceiling fan seems to be alive. Sometimes it turns on by itself. It already happened several times, so I'm sure it's not my imagination. (If I were more superstitious, I would assume a ghost had inhabited my ceiling fan) The garage, too, has been behaving strangely. I closed the garage door and was going into my house when the garage door opened up again! (Probably because of the wind blowing so hard against it. It was a really windy day.) I know the house is old, though it has been remodeled once, but it's kind of freaky.

Oh yes, and I recently signed up for what day to present my Outside Reading Project. That's basically a book report from language arts class where you get to pick three books, but one has to be an autobiography, biography, or a memoir. There's two parts to it. 1) Make a venn diagram showing the similarities and differences between the autobiography/biography/memoir you read and something else that had the same theme (a song, movie, etc.). 2) Give a speech on one of the books you read "for fun". I chose October 12 to present since 12 and 18 were my lucky numbers. I wonder if they still are, because I'm counting on 12 to give me success!

I really haven't said much in this post. I guess it's the morning blues. Or maybe it's because I can't sleep enough, so I end up still being sick. (Unless...I got a second cold in a row! Like what happened once! That would be dreadful. I was sick for a long time because I got two colds, one after another) And this is bad seeing as I have to run a mile today...Oh well. If I faint, it's alright, I suppose.

Labels: anime, art, blind, ceiling fan, deaf, garage door, h2o footprints in the sand, house, kseniya simonova, lucky numbers, ne sori, outside reading project, sand painting, speech, ukraine, webcomic

I haven't posted in a while on this blog. I guess I've been busier this school year than I ever expected it to be. I was told eighth grade was a harder year by far but seeing as seventh grade was such a lax year for me, this is really a change. I have to get used to it again or I will lose all semblance of free time except for on weekends.

I'm already beginning to worry because I had some pretty unfortunate luck in science class. I was assigned the very first of the presentation days for my Current Events this trimester. Basically, Current Events is where you pick a newspaper article or something, and then you write about it and give a speech. Except in this case it has to be science related. I have a pretty good idea what article I'm going to use, but seeing as I have only until September 8th to get everything together, it's stressful. Also, I'm not very good at public speaking so I'm afraid my lack of charisma will result in a worse grade. I mean, in the past I have rocked on my feet from nervousness or missed some crucial part of the presentation or something along those lines.

As for the blog title, what I mean is that if you don't touch something for a while, dust collects on it. Like corners of my piano. The little parts at the very left and right sides of your piano keys, well, you never really put your hand there so there's dust on it. I had better make sure mold and dust and such doesn't grow on my blog.

I'd appreciate if you all let me know if the blog's layout is working out right for you. Sometimes the header and background image don't show up so the layout looks all weird and you can't see things like the navigation. And when you view certain pages, since I wrote too much, the scrollbar looks like it's cutting off the text. I'm going to try and fix it if I get the chance. Anyhow, if you can't see the navigation, try highlighting the page with your cursor (the arrow or whatever thing you have on the computer screen that you use to click on things) until you can see the stars. (I will see about changing them to text, maybe it'll be easier to navigate that way as well.)

Today my language arts teacher and class were supposed to sing the birthday song to me and another classmate of mine. Our birthdays are in August (more specifically the 5th) but since we have summer birthdays we have to celebrate during the school year instead. However, we didn't have enough time in class and so I didn't receive my head of the line pass or get sung to. I don't really care about that but I worry that maybe the teacher has trouble managing time or something. (Or perhaps it's just because it's Wednesday, a short day.) It's a good thing I have brunch right after language arts class.

Labels: birthday, busy, current events, dust, eighth grade, language arts, layout, middle school, navigation, problem, public speaking, science, speech, summer, time management

Actually, that's a poem. Written by some person (I think it was a guy), but I don't remember who. I simply lacked naming ideas for the blog today. D:

I almost lost my socks. Much to my disappointment, we still had to go through the motions of PE in the rain. The wind was strong so that you could see the students' PE uniforms flapping. (That sounds rather odd. I was trying to make a simile or metaphor out of it but couldn't find a good comparison.) It made the rain come down at a funny angle. It was even more diagonal than it usually was. And since it was raining, puddles formed on the ground. My PE number (a white, bland number painted on the blacktop), Blair's 15, was submerged as usual. Probably due to that area of land being on a lower elevation than the rest.

One of my classmates, who I shall just call AV for privacy, was bursting with questions in Mr. Brown's science class. He always asks questions or makes comments, particularly in the 2 B's (Blair & Brown). For instance, Mr. Brown wanted us to guess the reason for wolverines having plantigrade posture. (We have plantigrade posture, too. Meaning we walk flat on our feet, unlike dogs and cats, who only walk on the balls of their feet. You know, that sticking-out hard on the bottoms of your feet, below your toes.) AV almost but not quite had the answer - which, by the way, is...flat feet are good for walking in the snow - but he couldn't get it out. "I-i-it's f-for...walking on snow and ice, and...uh...steep elevation stuff!" I think he was unable to speak properly due to his excitement, or eagerness, or something. No offense intended to you, AV, if you ever read this.

After school, my walking-home-companion's mother came to pick me up. This was a relief since the rain had just started again at the end of school. Besides me, the mother, and my companion, there was also the brother and his friend. No one spoke besides the mother and the brother's friend. The mother was very curious about what the friend was planning to do in Monta Vista (he's an eighth grader, even though I thought he looked kind of shrimpy. But maybe it's because he got injured when his cousin tackled him) and the boy is taking band (not much of a surprise to me, I expected that) and Japanese. I was surprised by the latter since my mom had led me to believe there would be no Japanese in high school. Hmm. I may consider learning it, if it's not too difficult. (However, my peers say Spanish is the most useful language, so I'm in a tizzy. I don't want to take Mandarin since colleges may think I was cheating by taking a language that my ethnicity is supposed to already know. My mom thinks I ought to take French, so I can speak to my aunt, but I'm not too keen on it.)

Speaking of languages (now that occurs to me as a very bad pun, if you catch my drift), I eavesdropped on my mom and my aunt talking, via Skype, the free online Webcam Messenger thing-a-ma-bob (of Science! as Bill Nye wouuld say). Apparently my cousin, who I shall call Sun (that's my mom and aunt's maiden name, and also kind of my cousin's nickname - Yang Yang), is already learning English in school. It's true that English is a much more "useful" language than French, particularly for business, but still. I was outraged as he is still in elementary school, and yet he gets taught another language, and will be trilingual, therefore beating me (I don't know enough Mandarin/Shanghainese/Japanese to really count it). I hope my intelligence at least rivals his.

Labels: carpool, high school, jabberwocky, language, monta vista, number, poetry, rain, relatives, school, socks, speech

My history grade went down a bit lately. The first was caused by stapling my China test in the wrong order and losing 5 points, making my perfect A become an A-, I think (you may know what I'm talking about if you've read my previous posts). So I almost forgot about that, except Mr. Blair passed back the history tests today, and he said in front of the class how he was calling out to me at the end of class back then because he was giving me the chance to fix it. I feel terrible because I wanted to get my lunch and had just run out on him, therefore ruining one of my grades.

And then it turns out I did pretty bad on my Japan project speech. I got a C, in fact. This is a major embarrassment to me and now my mother is considering signing me up for public speaking classes. I took Speech & Debate class last year in the summer and it was literal torture. I figured I would have to commit a crime or something to avoid it, but I'm reluctant (I heard there are some really scary people in jail). I was considering talking to Mr. Blair about these happenings, but then again, I brought it on myself, so I'm just wallowing in misery in the meantime. (I still have an A in history but it's not a high A like it used to be.)

Anyhow, on to some lighter news. Today is Friday the 13th, so that became part of the question for Dialing for Dollars. That's our school's game show, held every Friday. One of the counselors and the vice principal run the show. Your class can win prizes if they can answer the question asked correctly. (The classes are randomly drawn from a box and then are called via phone, so that's why it's called Dialing for Dollars) The answer turned out to be August. I had guessed it might be August (but this was a random guess, and Room B didn't get called). Still, I suspect I may have a sixth sense. Ooh.

Also, as Valentine's Day is tomorrow, but tomorrow is Saturday, we had Singing Valentines today. The days before you could've ordered SVs for a friend/someone you want to embarrass/someone you "like". You pay $3 and on Friday the people in FAME (acting, singing, dancing elective) and Dynamics (school choir) will come by in one your classes, give you a card the sender wrote plus a lollipop, and then they'll sing and dance around a chair (which you sit in, like the hot seat). It's entertaining to watch, but kind of weird to be the recipient, which I was, twice. The first was sent by one of my friends and I got a disturbing song about lips (apparently it was from the Ella Enchanted movie?). The second time, nothing was written on the card, but I suspect it was another friend, who didn't have enough time since the bell rang. They gave me a song about the letters in the word love. Both disturbing songs.

Oh well, the day's over now, and I might as well keep on living (even if it means I have to play music on purpose to fill up the dead silence). February break, here I come.

Labels: break, dialing for dollars, emotions, friday the 13th, history, school, singing, speech, valentines

...Or so I thought. I was busy typing up my factoring story for homework, and then I thought my eyes were flashing or something! So I looked at the lights,and one of the lightbulbs flickered and then went out. But now it's back to normal. I wonder if it was my imagination or it really did almost run out of energy a second ago.

As I am feeling very unhappy (because I am presenting my speech for my Japan project tomorrow) I don't feel that much like doing homework. So instead I figured I'd put in another blog post, and listen to my own playlist in the meantime. I just figured out that I had two of the same song (Anata ga Ita Mori, the ending theme of Fate/Stay Night anime) so I deleted one of them. Wow, I have too many songs - a total of 26 now. And that's just weird since 26 was my classroom back in fifth grade.

Here's the cooking schedule. It's pretty plain this week, much to my disappointment. But then again, next week will be winter break, and after that barely any of the trimester is left. I can't believe I'll be moving onto woodshop soon. (One of my friends is going to make me a clock, except she said she would make an easy one, to save herself effort)
Monday - Nachos Supreme (we made dip out of beef, spices, beans, cheese, etc.)
Tuesday - Chocolate Hearts (not hard to do. Just melt chocolate and pour it into molds. Then leave it in the fridge for a while)
Wednesday - Dairy Cow DVD (something like that)
Thursday - Dary Cow thing again.
Friday - Some exercise notebook or practice? (Dunno what that is but it sounds boring)

So you see, though cooking is really nice since you can look forward to it when you wake up, and it's free food, sometimes you have a dull time because we have to watch a bunch of cheesy videos and fill out worksheets.

But at least we watched something interesting recently. It's called the Meatrix and it's pretty funny. Here's the link.

Meatrix

Meatrix 2

Meatrix 2 1/2 (ignore Korean subtitles)

Labels: blog, cooking, elective, factoring, homework, japan, lightbulb, meatrix, music, speech, videos

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