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

Soon I'll be going on a school trip to Yosemite, where we will spend our days hiking and writing in our "journals". There's a lot of things that I needed to buy for this trip, because I'm not much of an outdoorsman. In fact, I've never really been camping out in a tent, seeing as my mom prefers civilization (and I guess I would really miss indoor plumbing, myself). But it'd still be nice to just try it, you know? For the sake of having that experience. It's not good to judge something you don't understand.

There's a whole lot of things that I needed to buy for Yosemite, including...
- A sleeping bag (I almost never sleep at other people's houses)
- Hiking boots
- Waterproof pants
- Waterproof jacket
- Snow gaiters (well, I guess I don't REALLY need them, but they're useful to have. They're like half pant legs that you can put on.)

There's probably a few more things that I have forgotten to mention. But anyways, I'll probably never use most of the things I bought for Yosemite after I come back. We don't really go hiking much in the first place (probably because I didn't like to do it...Too hot outside, I usually burned up my energy in the beginning through running, etc. Not that it isn't nice once in a while. In science camp back in fifth grade, we had the chance to hike alone, and it was really relaxing).

One of the things we needed to get was a bandana. Apparently, when we're out hiking, we'll stop to eat lunch, and we'll be using the bandanas as "plates" for our food. I set to thinking about bandanas.

Bandanas seem to have many uses. They can be used as hankerchiefs if you have allergies, you can wear them to look sort of like a cowboy (and you could also wear it if you're sick or people around you are sick as a kind of mask), you could put them on your head...I'm not sure if people usually do this, but somehow or other I got the notion that people who have gone through chemotherapy and thus lost their hair tend to wear bandanas to cover their heads.

To me, this gives the bandana a lot of meaning. The bandana is a sign of struggle, showing the battle between people and cancer and their fight to survive. It is a visible symbol of pain, fear, and desperation. At the same time, bandanas also show hope - a little hope that a person will pull through, fight off the cancer, and be able to resume living their life again. Maybe things will never be the same. Perhaps the scars, physical and mental, will always be there. But it's something precious, getting to have a second chance.

Bandanas are pretty cheap to get, but they're not necessarily useless. I hope you're paying attention things and what kind of purpose they really serve. I guess that's what teachers mean when they're saying, "You should ask under the surface questions!" You should still pay attention at school, even if you find it boring, because you never know, something important might be said.

My history teacher sometimes tells us stories, such as about having to transport a cake, being a valet, gambling in Las Vegas, and so on. He says we should pay attention since there is something to be learned from his stories; they're not just for entertainment. I think I might want to be a teacher sometime.

Here are some of my possible careers:
- Writer (well, that may have to be just something I do in my free time, what with the "starving artists" thing)
- Photographer (again, only if I can make a living off of it. Nowadays lots of people have huge Nikon or Canon black cameras)
- Interior designer or travel show host (too bad those jobs aren't that common)
- Ice cream shop owner (or some other kind of shop, with yummy food XD)
- Fashion designer (it'd be fun to come up with things, and I'd like to steer people away from those really low colors and tight clothing. x_x )

Labels: bandana, camping, cancer, career, chance, chemotherapy, future, hiking, hope, learn, outdoor, science camp, shopping, sign, significance, struggle, symbol, trip, useful, yosemite

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