Summer Reading Reflection - "Rich Dad Poor Dad"

The book recommended to me by my father is called "Rich Dad Poor Dad", a book about managing money, becoming successful and possibly retiring early by learning what to do when you have money, doing things such as investing in Assets such as bonds and stocks, rather than a house or job, known in Robert Kiyosaki's world as liabilities. My father recommended this book to me because he had read it and knew for fact that I could take in many ideas from this book to help me become a successful person after moving out of his house.

I took in many new ideas from this story, however, the one that I actually noticed the most was having your company make money for you and buy you objects such as a new car and a home. Robert's company was a real estate buyer's and seller's company, which allowed him to make money fairly quickly. Because he was fruitful in his efforts to make money for the company, not himself, he didn't really have to pay taxes on the money he was earning, and his company could just keep on earning money and buy objects of desire for him.

We Wear the Mask project page

Poem

Gamer

I am a gamer,

who likes playing games of all sorts.

Board games and video games,

Running games and small games,

Any type of game will do.

I am a gamer,

life is my game.

Getting an "A" in class just means I passed a level,

Passing a grade means I passed a chapter,

and getting a year older means I passed a campaign.

I am a gamer.

Like the life of a wanderer,

A gamer must travel to different games,

and explore his limits,

until he can bear no more.

I am a gamer,

where one life ends when his console shuts off,

he moves on to another,

and another life starts up.

I am a gamer,

Who must switch off a final life,

Rest,

And awake in what seems like minutes,

Repeating this process every day,

just having fun.

Reflection

One line that really meant a lot to me were the lines “Like the life of a wanderer,

A gamer must travel to different games, and explore his limits, until he can bear no more.” This

is something I do every once in a while, to find out new ways to do new tasks. The picture I

chose related to these lines because it shows me wandering around, nearly into a gaming world.

The entire writing process began with me writing a poem with one hundred and one words,

about how I consider myself as a gamer. Then everyone critiqued on other people's poems and

gave ideas to each other while taking ideas form reading other peoples' comments on the paper.

After that, I worked on my second draft of my poem and ended up with an even better poem.

Soon after that, we critiques in smaller groups and got some more thorough feedback from other

people. With that feedback, I wrote my third draft, and in the same way our poems were

critiqued the first time, in a gallery critique. I was given more feedback, with which I used to

create my fourth and final draft.

A message that I really want other people to take from this is that I am more than just a

gamer, and that even a gamer has more feelings underneath. Games have taught me a lot more

than just shooting and how to do all of these military tactics. They've taught me about many

different terms including nuclear deterrence and the cold war. So the other message I want

people to learn is that video games can teach you more than just shooting and violence.

TPOL links

Promise Project

http://students.hthma.hightechhigh.org/~mbeltz/Promiseproject.html

Blog Post

http://chezsplace-morgan.blogspot.com/2010/02/why-not-to-play-hero.html

Spanish Book

http://students.hthma.hightechhigh.org/~mbeltz/Storybook.html

Evelyn Glennie shows how to listen

So, a thing about Evelyn Glennie's performance that I was able to remember is that she is deaf, yet she can still listen through her body, and the vibrations that go through her body. So, what she was really saying is that she can hear through her body, not through her ears.
Listening to her performance, she can control the mood of the music she is playing through how she plays it, and you just feel the music vibrations in yourself that kinda control your mood.
Several different factors that controlled the music she played were what she felt, where she played the notes, and on what instrument she played.
"each person experiences music in their own way" is one of her quotes. I find this to be true because deaf people feel vibrations, people who cant speak (dumb is the literal term for this) play to say what they feel, and others just listen with their ears.

Sustainability Visits - Blog post - Reflections

1. What struck me about the locations I went to? Well, The farmers market I went to was pretty huge, filled with huge amounts of tents to as far as the eye can see, most of the people there being farmers, and the rest being some kind of an object seller, or an advertising restaurant.

2. Many of the items that were cheaper than I expected were out-of-season items, like corn and other stuff like that.

3. I might still continue going to a farmers market every so often, but I wont want to go through the trouble of getting to a community garden and a CSA again, taking me forever to get to them.

4. These locations fit into our questions of “Why Don’t People Live More Sustainably?” and “How Can I Convince them to do So?” by people going there to avoid using their cars and take public transit, and to not use processed goods, but food from the source so it eliminates the added in chemicals from the facilities, leaving you with the (hopefully) clean food.

12th Grade Garden Q&A and Reflection

Q1.What is being grown in the garden?

A1.Strawberries, watermelons, squash, flowers(assorted), and a banana tree.

Q2.How much water do you use?

A2. Well, since they only water in the morning, around several gallons a day.

Q3.Why did you make the garden?

A3. To be able to eat stuff, and to enter a competition, and in this case, they are making a strawberry banana smoothie.

Q4.How hard is it to manage the garden?

A4. Pretty tough.

Reflection

Q1. What does the garden look like?

A1. The garden is on two different levels, the one on the bottom being covered with watermelons, and the top having the rest of the veggies and fruits. Below is a small diagram of what the land looks like.

_________other fruits_______

\_______squash/watermelon______________

Q2.Does this inspire you to start your own garden?

A2. No, but it does inspire me to help my mom with her garden.

Q3.What does the garden experience make you think?

A3. It makes me think about trying to help my mom with her garden in the backyard.

LOLOLOL

LOLZ

Ganondorf Sparta Kick

I found this picture while i was searching on the internet. I found it pretty funny.

Food Inc & My Ishmael, My Ideas

So far, in My Ishmael, What has struck me is the fact that it says we are all destroying the planet, when not all of us have. It says directly in the book that we have to directly change the nature of humans, rather than to change the planet to our will. This is the same in Food inc., but it is more directed towards the big businesses and farmers than the humans themselves. I agree with these concepts because i think that people have become even more corrupted in the last 2000 years, and need to change over this. I can apply these ideas to the real world by joining in on other people trying to change other people for the sake of this planet. My Little brother, a family member of mine, thought that this is strange because he would never think of the world like this. in fact, he was already into stocks and jobs before i even got interested.

Dialectic Journal - School Daze - My Ishmael

Quote -

"Since they don't have any survival value, they're forced to enter the Taker

economy. Even if they'd rather opt out of that economy, they can't."

Journal entry -

"they" represents the students that go to schools, and since they are going to school, they aren't learning survival skills when they are supposed to, so they are automatically being sucked into the economy, and are unable to leave it, even if they want to. I really see the point in which they're making, and because of this flaw, more and more people are forcibly sucked into something they cant get out of, and because of this, they are getting lazier and lazier, to a point when they wont be able to work anymore, and because of this, they are going to ruin the economy. That's how I think our economy is going to collapse, because of lazy people being sucked into the job economy with no survival skills.

A Random Post...

^HEADCRAB^^HEADCRAB^^HEADCRAB^

Trogdor!!! Omg i caught a cricket w/ my bear hands...

_ _( 0)> - Duck

(____)

I'm too bored for this...

Why Not to Play Hero

The date was Wednesday, December 21, 2022. Julio got out of prison and let out a very heavy sigh, one that seemed to let the ages by. Then he smiled largely, let out a loud “yes!”, and ran to the nearest bus stop. However, he was changed, and had forgotten all about money, so he couldn’t pay for the bus fare. The only thing he could do was to try and wait for a car on the dark and desolate road. To Julio, the world seemed changed, much more than just a simple scenery change, but the skies seemed to be brighter before. However, he has been away from the outside for a while, so he is very unsure of what’s happened. No sounds came from either side of the road, and none from either direction, so he set off toward the southernmost territory, just him and the clothes on his back.

He had traveled quite far from his starting location, when he started to see a small building next to the road. He was amazed to see that this building was a quite quiet bar. He hadn’t drunk in such a long time, he couldn’t hold it anymore. He just needed a drink, to calm his nerves a little. He walked inside, saw the old and brown interior of the bar, much like a classic one,and met a few men who offered to buy him a drink. He was overjoyed to see that there were people he could still trust out in this world. He drank a little, laughed a lot, and talked even more. However, this conversing had just about been enough for the nearby gangbangers who were plotting a bank heist for a nearby city. They picked him up, threw him in the back of a truck, and left. The throw caused him to fall unconscious, until the next morning.

He awoke with a headache, and he looked around for a clue to where he was. He could see small buildings, a few shops, and some large apartments. He had finally arrived in a city. He heard and felt a large explosion to his left, and ran towards it. He saw a small plume of smoke rise up from that place, causing him to run faster towards it. He began to wonder what was happening over there. He arrived to see some strange looking workers tearing a hole in a bank. When they had finished with the hole, they ran inside and began taking money from each of the teller’s desks. Julio ran to a neighbor’s house and asked to use their phone. He called the cops quickly, and told them of the bank robbery that was going on. They instructed him to stall them for a while, for at least enough time for them to get there. He plainly responded, “Sure,” and walked towards the bank. He then waited for them to walk out, where he surprised them and asked, “Hey, do you like ice cream?” They each responded with a slow, unsure nod of their head, which seemed to say, “Um, sure. Why?” Julio responded, “If you like it, then you’ll love the vanilla looking colors of jail,” All of a sudden, many cars began to build a barricade around that one hole they blew in the wall, and the members stealing the money were arrested. Julio became honorary cop for a day, but ended up making enemies in the long run.

He decided that since he was in this familiar city, he should go to his parents’ house and learn about what has happened in this world while he was gone. At the closest alleyway to his parents’ house, a short mugging happened, between a merchant and a gang member. Julio made eye contact with the gang member, and made the member hide somewhere. The merchant ran off towards a small marketplace down the street, from which he yelled, “I won’t forget this, I will pay you back!” Julio walked over to his parents’ house, as the member watched and learned about Julio. He then ran to the kingpin of his gang, located in an empty, partly crumbled down warehouse, and told him about the trouble Julio caused him, and the other gang members with their “work”. As they spoke, a spy listened in. The leader was very angered, because many of the plans were dependent on each other, like a linked attack. Each attack can function only if the first attack is successful. In his angered state, he created many insane plans, but the gang was only able to agree on one out of the twenty-six plans they created. After obtaining much information on their plans, the spy returned to the streets like an innocent civilian heading to work.

Julio was just congratulating his parents for becoming seventy and still standing, when all of a sudden, bullets sprayed through the walls, and into his frail, seventy year old parents. They both fell, each with a heavy thud, unmoving. The shock on his face was like that of a small rat looking at a starving human attempt to eat him. He heard a booming voice say, “Because of your actions, your parents have fallen! If you want to continue living, then stop yourself next time you think playing hero will be best!” Julio learned that it was the major gang in this small city who had done it, and realized that he had signed hid parent’s death warrant by ruining the gang’s plans. He paid for his parents’ funerals to be held at high noon the next day.

The funeral was short and sad, and few people came. Julio’s parents meant a lot to him, and for days he wept for his old parents, until somebody came one day and gave him advice, to take revenge, and avenge both his parents’ lives. The next day, he found a black market dealer, focused on mainly on heavy weaponry. He bought a black M4 carbine, and a few grenades. However, in the distance, the cops were watching him, and seeing what he was doing. The cops reported both Julio and the arms dealer to the paraplegic chief of police, Joe. He yelled, “Aww… come on! I thought we could trust his guy!” He was arrested, and sent to jail with a five-year sentence.

The next day, somebody paid his bail. He was dumbfounded, because he didn’t know anybody who would pay. He walked out of the holding cell to see the merchant he saved earlier. The man asked, “How are you old chap?” Julio walked with him to the exit, where the merchant snapped, “You’ve got only a few hours. Make them useful.” Julio asked, “Why? Why only a few hours?” The merchant told him all about the plans the gang created involving his death, and his source of info. Julio now knew what he had to do. The merchant loaded Julio with new weapons, and left the scene, knowing that his debt was repaid to this man. Julio’s feelings were in the right place, and he was now ready to avenge his parents’ old lives.

Julio ran inside the abandoned warehouse, weapons at ready. The gang had been ready for him, and created several barricades. They were all ready for an attack, and he was going to give them one. He fired the M4 as many times as he could, wiping out an entire barricade. He unloaded a whole other clip into the remaining guys. The kingpin remained, but he had a few holes in his body. He decided to use his personality to his advantage. His very stabby personality, that is. He quickly located the kingpin in the back of the room, and crashed into him with the power of a hundred charging rhinos. The stab dented Julio’s knife, but left a huge gash in the side of the kingpin. The leader of the gang then threw himself at Julio, and both of them tumbled to the ground. The leader then stabbed himself with such a force, that it went through him and into Julio. Julio tried to get up, but collapsed in a heap on the floor. He began to remember his childhood, and how much he enjoyed it. His eyes shut, and his mind faded away, leaving his body an empty, punctured shell on the ground. Everybody died that fateful day.

Here's a link to the full zine (pdf)

TV On The Go - Popular Science

1. In this article, they said that TV is no longer going to be all cable, and that in select cities, TV can be broadcasted to DVD players around there, as long as there is a receiver to pick up the signals.

2. I'd say it's a pretty big thing because now you don't need to have a huge setup in your living room, you can just watch TV in the office or somewhere else.

3. In 2010, this is going to be an awesome change because you can now watch TV anywhere, as long as you have a receiver for a DVD player.

4. I really didn't notice any obstacles other than cost and electricity, but since it uses so little electricity, and since it costs so little, I find that there's really no setbacks.

On Thin Ice - Popular Science

1. In 2005, a European space agency sent a rocket into space to measure the polar ice. The rocket ended up crashing in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, due to failures. Now, in the late February, they are deciding on sending another one into space to take even deeper measurements of the polar ice, which is costing them $207 million to re-do. Results are going to announced in the late future.

2. I find this really important because if we were to research into them deeply, we would be able to find traces of ancient and maybe even extinct animal DNA. Also, we may be able to find a solution to making ice that won't melt as fast.

3. The world will (hopefully) gain a new glimpse of life as we know it, because the satellite would be sent out in late February to gather information.

4. One of the main setbacks of this project would be if the satellite crashed again, like the last time.

Semester Goals Mysics

Goal: To complete my work and turn it in on time on the day it's due.

First Step: Study and keep up to date on the work.

Goal: To complete a project well with an A.

First Step: Study the concept thoroughly and memorize as much as I can, keeping the material nearby if needed.

Goal: To understand the concepts of forces well.

First Step: Study the notes I get "well and thoroughly".

Semester Goals Humanities

Goal: To complete a project with an A or higher.

First Step: Ask for help from anybody I can, and try my best.

Goal: To get an A in humanities.

First Step: Complete my homework well and on time.

Goal: To get better at annotating texts.

First Step: Look over my notes to see if they have all the necessary items.

Time Traveler's Pillar

Project Description

This project was about finding out about a certain aspect of the culture, such as four general ancient history subjects. These subjects were one of these: Art and Architecture, Science and Technology, Religion, and Government.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Process

1. First, we drew a quick sketch of something that would be related to your pillar.

2. Next, we showed the teacher(s) our designs and got them approved.

3. Then, we got some paint and painted out our design the pillar that we chose, art and architecture, science and technology, etc.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reflection

1. From this project, I learned to paint a little better, and I learned to think from the angle at which the past artists had thought of art.

2. A challenge I encountered was time, because I couldn't speed up time on the paint drying, and that made me kind of blot the paint on there.

3. If I could change it, I would attempt to change the colors I used, because my painting was a little messy and made the picture too dark.

4. This will help me later by helping me think about the civilization more than usually would.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Time Traveler's essay

Project Description

The assignment was about learning about one particular aspect of a civilization, then to write a research report on what we had learned.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Process

The steps that it took to get to the final product were to:

1: First, start off doing research and write a rough draft of your research paper.

2. Correct it and write a first draft, correcting as many general mistakes as you saw.

3. Get a few peers to correct the draft, then rewrite your draft for a second draft.

3. Next, attempt to get a teacher's revision ideas and use them to create a (hopefully close to perfect) final draft.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reflection

1. From this work, I learned about a way to write a research paper, complete with a bibliography.

2. A challenge I encountered was the writing itself, mainly because i was never really good at typing or writing anything.

3. The next time I do this, I will change the way that I may describe the art and architecture, ot make it seem a little more realistic.

4. This will help me later because I will know how to write a research report correctly.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Artifact

As a start, I would like to introduce the purpose of civilization. It's role is to help people come together as a whole, to help each other and boost others when needed. A civilization is like a society in many ways. Art and architecture fit into this civilization by forms of religious monuments, such as the Gate of Ishtar, one of their goddesses, the hanging gardens of babylon, the tower of babel, and other religious statues. They also built ziggurats, or large stone temples, so I would say they had a pretty heavy emphasis on religion in their time.

Many things were quite interesting and unique in the babylonian empire. For instance, They built ziggurats, huge mudbrick temples that could reach past three to six stories tall, and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, a giant ziggurat that had an amazing amount of flora growing on it. From a distance, it could look like the palace of a god. It's history went as far back as the 17th century BC, to the 3rd century BC, where they were conquered and a new city was founded, the materials from babylon, leaving it in the dust and leaving it forgotten for centuries, until it was eventually excavated in the 20th century.1

At my specific pillar, art and architecture, the Babylonians were quite successful at. As I stated earlier in the text, they built the Ishtar Gate, The hanging gardens of Babylon, and the tower of Babel. Either that took them forever to come up with, or they were really experienced with architecture. Not only those, but the ziggurats that I mentioned earlier were also feats of architecture.

Some of the downfalls in their art had dealt with well, the fact that only some, strike that, a few of their art pieces are in museums today. One of their art pieces, a lion, was actually able to survive the weathering and weight of the sands and deserts on top of them. Also, their architecture was made by mudbrick. Although it solidified and turned into a stone when dried, it could not stand up against the metal weapons the other civilizations had, and used to attack them.

The civilization which I chose to compare to was Assyria. I chose this civilization because it was in the same region of the world that Babylon was located in. Both civilizations were located in the Fertile Crescent, both of them believed in probably close gods, and both had similar architecture. Both had these lead them to a success, because their cities were preserved and art kept safe for future civilizations to study.

The art and architecture of Babylon had really helped to contribute to their society, and actually
kept them alive behind sturdy walls, so I would say that the architecture really helped to keep their society alive. Then their art, I would presume, had an amount of vibrancy that would surpass an average drawing and really show 2their ideals in a really solidified form, so on those two pieces of information, I believe that my pillar actually supported their civilization.

So, as I stated earlier, art and architecture I would say had a big emphasis on religion in their time. I know this by their means of architecture and buildings, because the hanging gardens were built for their deities, the Ishtar gates were built for Ishtar, and ziggurats were built for their religious purposes. This is why I think that art and architecture were really emphasized by the amount of religious buildings they had built.3

Scatman John

None of you may know him, but he was a pretty epic guy. i got a picture of him. sad thing is, he died several years ago. he made jazz and electronica music, pretty upbeat. this is my contribution to him, to get people to remember him. <--Boom!-->

<- Hero In My Eyes - Project Reflection ->

The hero in my eyes project's main question was "How does a hero become a hero?" I really thought that to become a hero, you had to be named so by people, based on viewpoint or perspective. This project was about writing a story on a person whom you felt was a personal hero to you, in which I picked my father.

The steps I took to complete our project were:

1. We completed an interview with our hero.

2. We made a character sketch describing the moment.

3. We critiqued each other's papers. ( I was almost late...)

4. We changed our papers and modified them, then printed them out again.

5. Charlotte then checked our papers and added corrections.

6. We fixed the paper (yet again) and finished with that.

7. Finally, we used a template Charlotte created to make the same looking type of paper like in the books with famous medal of honor people.

8. We finished the project.

I really learned that heroes are more than just flashy people in pajamas, that they really are mainly people who help out with people, and help to solve their problems. Many of the challenges I encountered included the deadlines, but I could have tried to get extensions on time. Next time, I will try to have the work printed out by the date, and this will really help me by actually getting me full credit instead of half.

The habit of mind that I really used was innovation, because I really was using my own style of writing rather than the usual type of describing a hero.