Is Your Addiction Fooling You?

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Is Your Addiction Fooling You?

                Sometimes, addictions are almost unshakable; they are deeply wired into one’s brain and take serious willpower and dedication to be broken.  Some examples would be smoking tobacco, doing marijuana, cocaine, heroine, opium, methamphetamine, or any other drugs, biting fingernails, video games, the internet, just to name a few.  However, I recently shook an addiction, just over a week ago, and frankly, it was easier than hell.  I believe that some addictions are like this; they are bad habits and consume a lot of our time, but all it would take to quit was to just say, “No!”

                My recent addiction was to Bike Race, a stupid, worthless game on my iPhone.  However, despite its uselessness, I was engulfed by it, and I played almost two thousand multiplayer games in the course of a month to a month and a half.  One day near the end of this addiction, I sat down and calculated how much total time I have wasted from my life on this game, and how much I was wasting every week, and every day.  It came out to be about eleven to twelve hours a week, and I was very aware that many days I spent two hours playing.  I simply decided that this would have to stop soon, and a couple days later, I literally just stopped completely.  I went from playing well over an hour one day to absolutely none the next, and for the past week. 

                I’m not sure why it was so easy, but I think it’s because I just stopped thinking about it, and just thinking about returning to Bike Race is quite repulsive to me.  I’ll be honest, over the last week I have played maybe five games because they were with people I just really wanted to play with, but they only take an average of ten to fifteen seconds each, so that adds up to about a minute of total play.  This is how much I should be playing this game.  But really, I am reluctant to play even this much.  I have totally lost interest in the game after quitting it, and I am proud to say that it won’t waste any more of my life.

                I think that a lot of people’s bad habits and addictions are similar to my situation.  They just don’t know how easy it would be for them to stop easily at will, because they are constantly engaged in their habit.  However, if they just mustered up the courage to say, “No!” one time, then they could be done forever, and it would be as easy as that.  I hope that just one person will read this post, and then be able to easily and relatively painlessly stop a bad habit.  That would make it worth the effort from me.

Jailbreaking, Part II

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Jailbreaking, Part II

                In my opinion, Jailbreaking should be legal, and the owner of a device should be able to do anything they want with it, as long as it doesn’t break any laws or harm anyone.  This doesn’t have anything to do with piracy, because I am talking only about the act of Jailbreaking.  For this reason, I am glad that the Supreme Court agrees with my view.  However, I believe that the issue of piracy and such has a very fine line, and I think that some things are clearly very illegal, or at least immoral.  For example, getting a game for free after Jailbreaking because you don’t want to buy it from the App Store or anywhere else isn’t right; that is stealing, and stealing is wrong.  However, in the event that one wants to play Pokemon on their iPod and already has the game purchased for Gameboy Advanced, I think they should be able to download it for free, because they have already paid for it, and it really doesn’t even exist on iPod.  Therefore, this person isn’t stealing, because there isn’t even a way to pay for the game on his/her iPod.  Legality aside, I don’t think this is immoral.  Therefore, I wouldn’t look down upon anyone that does it; I think it should be allowed.

                There are several different ‘companies,’ for lack of a better name (they don’t make you pay for it), which offer their own Jailbreaking software which will navigate around Apple’s restrictions and then remove them totally.  Some examples of these groups are Redsn0w, Absinthe from Greenpois0n, Sn0wbreeze, and Jailbreakme.com.  After Jailbreaking, there are two main ‘replacement app stores,’ Cydia and Installer, which allow Apps not approved by the Apple App Store.  Usually, once one group finds a Jailbreak for a certain iOS version, it quickly gets leaked out to the others, and they all start offering it.  These groups don’t really care, because most offer their Jailbreaks free of charge. 

                There are two main types of Jailbreaks: tethered and untethered.  Basically, the difference is that a device Jailbroken with a tethered Jailbreak must be connected to the Jailbreak software every time it is turned on, but with the untethered, the device only needs to be connected to the software one time.  In short, untethered is always preferred over tethered.  There are currently no untethered Jailbreaks discovered for the latest version of iOS, iOS 6.  This means that any device with this most up-to-date version cannot obtain an untethered Jailbreak.  Also, the latest version of Apple devices, including the iPhone 5, doesn’t even have a tethered Jailbreak that has been discovered.  Customers with these devices must simply wait until a group discovers a Jailbreak, and until then, they are out of luck when it comes to Jailbreaking.

Jailbreaking, Part I

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Jailbreaking, Part I

                If you’ve never heard of it before, Jailbreaking Apple devices sounds a lot more evil and immoral than it really is.  Jailbreaking is just the name, but really all that is happening is that one is using some software from the internet to remove restrictions placed on iDevices by Apple.  Apple’s has good intentions, and requires every application on its App Store to be approved by it, in order to protect customers from anything malicious or dangerous in some way.  However, many people think Apple is a bit overprotective, and turn to Jailbreaking to remove all of Apple’s restrictions.

                The main reason people Jailbreak their iPhones, iPods or iPads is because they want to download Apps that aren’t available in the App Store, for whatever reason.  These often include games by other companies, such as Nintendo, which Apple quite obviously will never make a deal with, because Nintendo is one of their direct competitors.  As a result, no Nintendo game will ever be available on the App Store.  The only other major reason for Jailbreaking is because people want to Unlock their iDevices, which means that they can switch cell phone companies at their will, and are no longer restricted to their contracts.  Actually, Unlocked devices are sold to the public in some areas, such as Canada.  However, these aren’t available in most areas, so people turn to Jailbreaking to solve this problem.

                In addition, many Apps that cost money on the App Store can be obtained for free on replacement app stores that become available after Jailbreaking, and for this reason people Jailbreak to participate in piracy.  However, this is usually not the case, but the legality of this issue went all the way to the Supreme Court.  There are two main arguments in this struggle.  The first is that iDevices are Apple products, and therefore Apple has the right to place any kind of restrictions they please onto the devices.  People agreeing with this argument believe that Jailbreaking is using the device in ways that it was not meant to be used, and that this shouldn’t be legal.  The second argument is that one purchased the device, and they fully own it, so they should be able to do anything they want with it.  People agreeing with this argument believe that they are using their device’s full capabilities, and Apple shouldn’t have the right to restrict this.

                The Supreme Court ruled Jailbreaking and Unlocking of devices legal, basically agreeing with the second argument above.  However, this is still a controversial issue, and the issue of piracy is still handled on a case-to-case basis, as the Supreme Court case deals only with the argument between hackers and Apple.  For example, it is generally agreed that downloading a Nintendo game for free after Jailbreaking is piracy.  However, many Jailbreakers argue that this should be allowed, as they own the original Nintendo games on different systems, and these games aren’t even available on the iDevices.  Therefore, they are basically using a game they already own, simply on a different system.  Is this reasonable?  That is the question.

Global Warming? Bring It.

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Global Warming?  Bring It.

                Tomorrow is my birthday, and eight days later is Christmas.  I can only recall one other year in which there was no snow on the ground on my birthday and Christmas.  I don’t remember what year it was, but I would say it was within the last six or seven years, and the only reason I remember it was because I remember thinking about it while walking up to my grandma’s house on either my birthday or Christmas, and seeing the bushes with all their leaves gone, just a bunch of twigs, but there was no snow.  It just doesn’t feel right!  Maybe, by some miracle of God, it will just snow like crazy tonight, or even just sometime between now and Christmas.  Usually, by now, I would have skied with my dad multiple times, but obviously that hasn’t worked out so far this year.  Hopefully the long delay of snow will result in a long delay in the stoppage of snow in April or even May… Anyway, I’m going to check the weather real quick…..

                Well, I guess there won’t be any snow tomorrow, but it looks like we may get 3-6 inches on Wednesday night, December 19.  However, I will be in Chicago then, so hopefully we’ll get some there too.  By the way, for anyone that doesn’t know, I live in Iowa, which is right in the middle of the largest humid temperate climate area in the world.  That means that it gets really hot in the summer, like, in the 100°s, and it gets really cold in the winter, like, -10°, -40° with windchill.  Quite obviously, I’m talking Fahrenheit.  Except for the -40°, that works either way :)

                I’m attributing this alternation of very early and very late snowfalls from year to year to global warming.  Whether global warming and the greenhouse effect is man-made or not, it’s happening, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop anytime soon.  In case you don’t know very much about global warming, I’ll educate you a little bit.  First of all, what is going on right now, is that the temperatures all over the world are rising every year, and it’s getting hotter and hotter, which causes all kinds of crazy weather patterns, more violent storms, droughts, and all kinds of other ecological problems and disasters.  You may assume that the earth will just keep getting hotter and hotter, but this is not the case.  After a while, as the ice caps melt, the ocean currents, which are run by temperature, will stop.  After this occurs, there will be no regulation of temperature by the oceans, and we will go into another ice age.  So really, the end effect of global ‘warming’ is another ice age.  I actually think that will be kind of cool.  I’m obviously assuming that it’s going to happen, and since it is, I would kind of like to see it happen within my lifetime.

12/21/2012, Part II

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12/21/2012, Part II

                In all seriousness, though, I really am dreading the events that will be coming this week fueled by the end of the Mayan calendar on Friday.  We’ve already been barraged by the media in response to the events in Connecticut the other day, which I have from the start tried to shield myself from.  I haven’t watched any news about it on TV, I have averted my gaze from any news about it on the internet; the only information I have seen was from Facebook and Twitter.  All my friends, whether in genuine sympathy or not, love to jump on the tragedy bandwagon.  I think that for many of them it’s purely for attention, or to make them look like better people, but whatever, maybe not. 

                Anyway, one of the only things I’ve read in length about it was Morgan Freeman’s statement, because it was on #Discover on Twitter.  One point that he made really made the whole thing worth reading.  It’s not like it was a very long statement, either.  He said that he hates the way that the media blows this kind of thing up, making the shooter or killer seem like a total celebrity.  We will always remember the killer’s names, but not the victims’.  But the major thing was that this just encourages other psychos to try to top this, as some news networks are saying that this is “the worst killing since Virginia Tech.”  I agree with Morgan that none of these tragedies are any worse than any other. 

                I will be going to Chicago on Wednesday, and we will come back Saturday night.  I’m a little scared because this is a BIG place, capable for a BIG attack in precession of the ‘end of the world.’  I just hope that nothing crazy happens in whatever place I happen to be in, at whatever time.  I think that I’ll probably be okay, because I’m going to a huge music event, so a crazy would probably rather go downtown have more targets.  I should probably check out where this thing is before I say that, because there’s a good chance that it is downtown!  Hopefully, with plenty of prayers across the world, nothing too nuts will happen this week, and hopefully no one will try to ‘make it’ the end of the world on Friday.  I could just see a terrorist attack from the Middle East coming right now.  It won’t happen, they probably hate the Mayans.  They took part in beating them down, so how much would they believe this whole prophecy?

12/21/2012

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12/21/2012

                I believe that the world will continue past Friday, and that there is no reason to think that the Mayans could predict the final day of the world.  Most reasonable people probably agree with me.  But if it did, I would definitely be one of the survivors.  Let’s predict that one percent of the world’s population will be able to continue their existence.  Here is why I would be in that one percent.

                First of all, I am in great physical condition and very healthy.  It makes sense that the healthiest, fittest people would be the ones that would survive the environmental catastrophe that takes place.  I live in a developed country, and have been well fed and nourished my whole life, and I am quite active, so I would guess that I am in the top one percent of the world in terms of fitness and health. 

                In addition, I am pretty intelligent, so I would be at least as resourceful and clever as any other person in the world, thinking of the best way to survive.  It might be hiding underground, it might be finding a gas mask, it might be stuffing my pockets with matches and lighters, stealing all the food I can fit in two carts at Walmart, jailbreaking my iPhone (through hardware, not software), or unhooking the batteries from every car within a mile for whatever I might need them for.  Different situations definitely call for different actions to be taken. 

                Let’s assume, as most scientists would suggest, that the safest place to live would be underground.  This is assuming that there is some kind of contaminant in the atmosphere that would be extremely harmful to humans and other life, even fatal.  I would find out as soon as possible when the world was ending, and hack into governmental communications to find out where all the most ‘important’ people were going in the new underground world.  With my help, we would create an air filtration system that pumps the air we need out of all the crap from above ground.  That would be until I design a way to break carbon dioxide into O₂ oxygen and either diamonds or graphite, or some other carbon molecule or compound.  Maybe just old-school ashes.  Nevertheless, they would soon recognize my value.

                Finally, Jackie Chan would be our martial arts coach, and would be our guide to the two new official world languages, Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese.  I’m getting kind of excited.  On the inside, I really do hope that the world ends on Friday.  If all else fails, Jesus will take me and most people in the world to Heaven.

Reading or Listening?

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Reading or Listening?

                Yesterday on the ACT, I read that some educators think that students should be allowed to listen to assigned literary works on audio recordings instead of out of a book, if they choose.  However, I am pretty opposed to this idea, because I can foresee only detrimental effects.  I think our society is becoming too dependent on technology as it is, and this would only be encouraging further independence within the education system.  I just don’t think it’s the way to go.

                First of all, allowing students to listen to audio recordings of their literature instead of reading them would create a handicap, as they would become more or less addicted to this method of ‘reading,’ which would be preparing them to fail in college and the workforce, where reading is an essential skill that needs to be reinforced as early as possible.  In fact, elementary school students wouldn’t even feel the need to learn how to read, which would make the entire education system fall apart, and would be setting these kids up for disaster in their later school years and throughout their lives.  Our society would quickly grow less and less literate, and would eventually become stupider.

                In addition, listening to an audio recording requires far less focus than reading.  When reading from a book, students are forced to focus all of their attention on reading and comprehending, allowing little to no distraction.  Reading is an active process.  In contrast, listening is a passive process.  When listening to a tape, students would be tempted to ‘multi-task,’ and therefore would be paying little to no attention to their literature, because they are not forced to do so.  Their mind would be free to wander, and not pay attention to what is being read to them.  In the end, they probably wouldn’t get the full benefit out of their assigned literature, and would come to class unprepared.

                Finally, listening to a recording as opposed to reading is much slower.  Reading out of a book is much faster than listening to a story being read to you, which is quite important to students’ schedules nowadays.  The number of activities available to students is larger than ever, and they need to manage their time as efficiently as possible in order to take advantage of all these extracurricular activities in addition to getting all of their homework done.  They simply don’t have time to listen to a tape being read to them.

ACT: Third Time's the Charm?

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ACT:  Third Time's the Charm?

                Yesterday, I took the ACT for the third time.  I took it once in seventh grade, and once in ninth grade, but this was my first ‘legit’ time, because I am now a junior.  The ACT is a pretty brutal test; not because each of the sections individually is so excruciating, but all together the four to five hour test really wears you down by the end.  The test is always taken in the same order; English, math, reading, and science.  And if you choose to take the Plus Writing option, then writing is at the end. 

                In seventh grade, I didn’t take the writing part, but I still felt the full effect of the psychological breakdown that occurs through the grueling hours of the exam.  I felt fine during the English section, because it was first, and math is by far my strongest area (I got a 35 on the math section my first time, and the only two I missed were stupid mistakes), but then came reading, my relative weakness.  It took a lot of effort to get through it, especially since I was pressed for time, as I was the next two times I took the ACT also.  Then came science, which is really just the evaluation of scientific studies, which totally caught me off guard.  In the end, I was grateful that I would be able to take this test many more times to get a better score.

                In ninth grade, I took the ACT Plus Writing.  I was much more conditioned against the mental fatigue, and got a better score, except I got the lowest possible score on the writing section.  It wasn’t because I am a horrific writer, but rather because I didn’t follow the directions.  The writing section always presents a controversial issue, and you have to take a side on the issue, or develop an entirely different solution.  I, however, sort of took both sides, which was apparently totally unacceptable.

                Yesterday, I felt like a professional athlete when facing the test weardown, and I am sure that when the results come in, I will get my best score by far.  This time, I followed the directions on the writing section, and I hope to get a perfect score on it or perhaps one point less.  If I get a good enough score on the entire test, I will be done and never take it again.  However, I’m not easily satisfied, so the score better be high as all hell.  :)

Respect: A Lost Art

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Respect:  A Lost Art

 

                A couple days ago, I learned that Pope Benedict XVI had created a Twitter account, so I quickly found him and followed him.  I think it’s great that he has it in eight different languages, but they are all European, and I think he could get a lot of support from several East Asian countries if he got one in Chinese.  Whatever, it’s not that big of a deal.  Anyway, he also has his own hashtag for people wanting to tweet questions about their faith to him, and he promises to answer occasionally.  To see what people are asking about, I searched the hashtag.  I wish I hadn’t.

                I was astounded by the amount of hateful things that people were tweeting to the leader of the Catholic Church, whom over one billion look to for guidance in their faith.  I would estimate that I read through fifty negative tweets before I finally came upon one that had some legitimacy and asked the Pope a reasonable question, without sarcasm, about his/her faith.  I also searched the Pope’s Twitter name, @pontifex, to see if there was anything respectful there.  More vile remarks.  I then came across a tweet from a priest, who apparently shared my disgust.  Then, when I clicked on this tweet, I saw that it had many reply tweets, probably about ten different people, who started arguing with the priest and giving him the same crap that they were saying to the Pope.  It was all quite sickening.

                Yes, the Catholic Church has definitely had its dark ages since Jesus walked the earth.  There were many evil popes in the era from roughly 1000-1600 AD, who were greedy for money and power over Europe.  However, the Church has removed most of its flaws, and especially during John Paul II’s reign had returned to its former glory when Christ was in the world.  Treating the Church and the Pope with such disrespect, whether you are Catholic, Christian, or not, is totally obscene.  You don’t see Christians going to the Dalai Lama’s Twitter page and tweeting terrible things.  The only person that has to deal with even close to this amount of hate is probably Barack Obama, but I think it’s reasonable to say that the Pope gets ten times as much social media hate as he does. 

                It’s fine to have different views and beliefs, but if you just cannot accept different religions and cultures, you should at least find it somewhere in yourself to be tolerant of them.  If you don’t agree, then just don’t say anything!  Why do you have to be a jerk and say horrible things?  Acting like that is clearly looked down upon in any religion.



Bike Race

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Bike Race

                Two months ago, I got the iPhone 4 for free, just after the iPhone 5 came out.  I quickly became acquainted with the App Store, and ‘purchased’ the best free game that Apple has to offer.  This game is called “Bike Race,” and it is now probably the biggest waste of time currently in my life.  There are single player and multiplayer modes; achieving certain accomplishments earns you new bikes, which have certain advantages over the others.  You can play in multiplayer mode against your Facebook friends who also have the game, and it keeps track of your win-loss record so that you can obtain bragging rights over all your friends. 

                Here’s how the game is played.  The iPhone (or iPod touch) is turned sideways, and pushing the right side of the screen makes you accelerate, pushing the left side of the screen makes you brake, and tilting the device to the left or right causes you to lean forward or backward.  There are many different tracks, and many have little tricks that allow you to finish faster.  That’s all there is to it.  In addition to all the bikes you can earn from certain accomplishments, there are two bikes that you can purchase; the Kids Bike for $15.00, and the Super Bike for $20.00.  Buying these bikes would be totally unfair, but I generally don’t have to worry about that because few people are willing to pay that heavy of a price for a stupid little game.

                At the moment, I have 1247 multiplayer wins.  I would estimate that I win about seventy percent of the games I play, so that would calculate out to about 1780 total multiplayer games that I have played in about a month.  Do you understand why I say this is a serious waste of my time?  Thankfully, the average race only lasts about fifteen seconds, but that still adds up to about seven and a half hours that I have burned on this game in about a month.  Thankfully, as with all other games, I will almost certainly get tired of this sad excuse of a game, and will no longer waste any more of my time on it.  But for now, I am still vastly enjoying my Bike Race experience, and I feel that I am getting pretty close to professional level. :)

Kitties!!

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Kitties!!

                I often wonder what my cats think.  What is the extent of their mental capacity?  How well can they communicate with each other?  Why are they so forgiving?  Are these small animals even smart enough to think about this kind of thing?  I believe that my cats have the brains of infant humans, maybe even very small children, but they have much improved coordination and physical skills over their human counterparts.  They also have the innocence and forgiveness of a very small child; they love their people infinitely and are seemingly infallible creatures of God.

                However, I also think that each cat and other animal has its own unique personality, even if it’s not as distinct as the personality differences between humans.  For this reason, I believe that they are able to think on their own, which would help explain why they are sometimes so naughty; chewing up paper, eating off our plates, drinking out of the toilet, sleeping on the clean clothes, biting cables, etc. 

                My two cats’ names are Smoky and Leafy.  Smoky is a boy and Leafy is a girl.  My mom is a flute teacher, and about six years ago one of her students found Smoky in a forest in the back yard of her brother’s piano teacher’s house.  He was skin and bones; his ribs suck out and he looked days away from death.  She brought him home, and a few days later convinced my mom to have us adopt him.  He is the nicest animal I have ever seen, and I am obviously very glad that we decided to take him.  From our experience with playing with mouse toys with him, we have determined that he has poor eyesight, would greatly benefit from a pair of glasses, and thus was not a very good hunter.  But that’s okay, because now he lives the luxurious indoor life of a housecat.

                A few months after we adopted Smoky, Leafy came to our house, saw Smoky, and meowed at our door all day.  Every time the door opened for my mom’s students to come and go, she would run in, and Smoky would be inches behind her, chasing her around the room.  It was quite a disruption.  She stayed on our porch and yard for five days, through a straight twenty-four hours of thunderstorms, and we finally decided that we would take her in too.  Although I will probably never figure out the exact mental capabilities of my cats, I know that they are very smart, and they bring endless joy to my whole family.

The Science of Writing

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The Science of Writing

                Language arts, especially writing, is a subject in school that comes much less naturally to me than math and science.  I feel much better when there is a clear correct answer, and a methodical way to do things, or to use your creativity to do it a new way, but still knowing that everything I’m doing is right.  It gives me peace of mind that I have completed the problem to perfection, and that I am totally correct.  However, when writing, there seems to be an overwhelmingly infinite number of ways to convey your ideas, and just as many, probably more, ways to write poorly.  Writing is a much more subjective subject, which bothers me, because I sometimes don’t agree with another person, or don’t see what they see. 

                The good news is that I have recently discovered that writing is actually much more methodical and follows a pattern more than I thought, and it is through aspects such as diction, sentence structure, tone and style.  A well-written essay is no longer a randomly thrown-together combination of words that is pleasing to read, in some people’s opinion.  I can now identify the elements of a good essay used by its author, and it is much easier for me to analyze and see why it is well written.  The most fascinating technique, in my opinion, is tone.

                Tone is the manner which the author portrays as he writes, and it is usually very clear, and is directed at achieving his purpose.  The tone shows the author’s personal attitude toward his subject, and whatever he is writing about.  For example, if the author writes with a tone of indignation, he is writing subjectively, and is probably influencing your thoughts to believe that the subject or events he is describing are unfair and unjust.  If he uses a tone of satire, then he is wittily critiquing his subject, and is pointing out, through sarcasm, the flaws of his subject. 

                These aspects and elements of writing such as tone have become familiar to me, and now I think of writing as a much more mathematical and logical process.  After gaining this knowledge, it is much easier for someone like me to write strategically, using these new tools to write more eloquently and more effectively.  I am looking forward to learning even more about specific techniques used by world-class authors to improve my own writing in the future.

Data Burnout

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Data Burnout

                I got my iPhone about thirty days ago, as today is the last day of my data plan for the month.  My plan allows me to use two gigabytes of 3G data per month, and at the beginning of today I had only used about six hundred megabytes, so I had 1.4 more gigabytes that I could burn through before I get two more tomorrow.  So far, I have used about 250 megabytes today, basically from downloading tens of apps just because I could.  For example, I downloaded six free tuners from the app store, and eventually deleted all of them after buying a high quality one for $3.99.  I also downloaded a dog whistle, the YouTube app, doodle jump full version, fall down, and blogger. 

                I see myself being left with incredible amounts of data at the end of each month, so this mass downloading to finish off the month will probably become an addicting habit for me.  This small usage of data on my part also tells me that I can afford to watch some YouTube videos, which I was initially very wary of because of the large amounts of data they consume.  Honestly, my parents could save ten bucks a month by only getting me one gigabyte per month, but I don’t think they especially care.  Besides, my sister also gets her own two gigabytes per month, but a few days ago my mom actually got an email saying that she had surpassed fifty percent of her monthly allowance, and this is because she downloads gobs of stupid games.

                I actually end up deleting at least half the apps I download, because I either get a better one that does the same thing, or the app doesn’t do what I expected it to.  Another thing to take into consideration when getting apps is that the iPhone only has a certain amount of memory, for mine it is eight gigabytes, the smallest amount.  For the new iPhone 5, I believe that the smallest one is sixteen gigabytes, but it may actually be thirty-two.  A lot of this is used for the software and such, so my iPhone 4 only started with 6.37 gigabytes of available memory.  I still have 5.1 gigabytes leftover, and I don’t think I’ll ever use the full eight gigabytes.  My largest memory consumer is my music, which I currently have 104 megabytes of, followed by twitter with 84.9 MB and facebook with 74.4 MB.

                Anyway, I am really looking forward to using more of my data next month, and I feel like I am bathing luxuriously in my incredible amount of data.  I find it quite excessive that some people feel that they need ten gigabytes of data per month.  I mean, you have got to be totally attached to the thing, downloading loads of YouTube videos, movies, TV shows, music videos, Pandora, etc.  I guess if you did all those things you could get to ten gigabytes.  That’s probably why there is also the unlimited data plan for an extreme price!

TV Troubles

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TV Troubles

                After Mediacom jacked up their prices after the first two years, we switched TV providers again, this time choosing DirecTV, which uses a satellite dish, which may or may not be relevant to this situation.  Anyway, our box isn’t working, so we can’t watch TV.  As it is Sunday night, a new episode of Boardwalk Empire, my family’s favorite show, is on.  My mom is devastated that we aren’t going to be able to watch it, even though they’re going to be replaying it all week.  Anyway, we can determine that she is quite rattled, because she has resorted to cleaning the house.  She is cleaning the house.  She is rattled. 

                I don’t understand why we always seem to be the ones having all the TV problems.  Whenever there’s a weather-related issue or just out-of-the-blue problems, it always affects us.  Oh well, enough complaining.  I just wish we could get I’m On for internet in our area, because everyone else is always raving about how amazing and cheap it is.  And the worst thing is that the repair guys always take at least a couple days to come fix it, and when they do it’s always a good five or six hours late.  I wish we could just get a good cable company in our area that never gets screwed up and needs to get fixed, like the other ninety percent of the population.  Whatever, we could definitely have worse problems.

                Generally, TV providers that use a satellite dish are more shaky, as the weather can easily screw it up, and the dish is just finicky to start with.  With cable companies, sometimes the cable gets cut by underground animals miles away, and after the company gets a couple hundred calls, they haul it and get out to fix it right away.  For this reason, I prefer cable over satellite, but Mediacom is the only cable provider that serves my area, and after the first two years their prices go absolutely through the roof. 

                Hopefully the DirecTV guy gets here to fix our crap by tomorrow, because that way we’ll be able to watch the reruns of Boardwalk Empire as early as possible.

Electoral Catastrophe

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Electoral Catastrophe

                The Electoral College was a good idea a couple hundred years ago, but in the modern world it is totally unnecessary and unreasonable, and should be dramatically altered or totally scrapped.  The way the Electoral College is that there are 538 seats in Congress, and each district throughout the country gets one Electoral vote.  Each state gets the same number of Electoral votes as it has seats in Congress, and Washington, D.C. also gets three votes.  However, in most states, whichever candidate wins the most Electoral votes in that states takes credit for all the Electoral votes in the state, thus ‘winning’ the entire state.  When votes had to be counted by hand, and there was a great deal of human error, intentional or unintentional, this was a better system create a buffer between the candidates and the public.  However, nowadays, votes can be made and counted electronically, so I believe it would make more sense for the public and the popular vote to have a greater impact on whom gets elected.

                Many people would argue that it’s not that big of a deal, because usually the candidate that wins the Electoral vote is the same one that wins the popular vote.  However, four times in history, most recently the election of 2000, the winner of the popular vote has lost the Electoral vote, and therefore lost the election.  This is nonsense, because as stated in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and whatever else is that every man is created equal.  I take that to mean that every American citizen’s vote should be counted equally, meaning that the popular vote should be the decider of the election, as the greatest percentage of citizens wants it that way.  Many of the elections in our country’s history were pretty lopsided, especially during times of unipartisan domination, making the Electoral College a very efficient and easier alternative to counting every last vote.  However, as the last few elections have all been totally down to the wire, and the popular vote winner sometimes loses the election, the Electoral College simply isn’t acceptable any longer.

                I believe there are two ways to fix this.  The first way would be to simply base the election off the popular vote, as this would directly represent every voter equally.  The second would be to divide up each state’s Electoral votes, as is already somewhat the case in Maine and Nebraska.  I think this second way would also be an acceptable alternative.  If you couldn’t already guess, I wasn’t thrilled when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore, despite Al Gore winning the popular vote.  We wouldn’t be talking about things like the economy or Afghanistan if that wouldn’t have happened.

中文 (Zhongwen)

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中文 (Zhongwen)

                I go to one of the two high schools in Iowa that offers Chinese as a foreign language.  I feel very blessed that I have the opportunity to take it, but I have to say that I am a bit puzzled by the way it is set up.  The first three years of Chinese to me were quite easy; I could basically show up and learn everything, getting perfect grades along the way.  However, now, in AP Chinese, there is a considerable amount of homework each night, and it just makes me wonder:  why couldn’t this have been more spread out over the four years?  If you’re wondering how I’m taking AP Chinese as a junior, it’s because I took Chinese 2 in the summer between freshman and sophomore year to increase the numbers in the class above me, by my teachers’ request. 

               The thing is, the first three years of Chinese we do follow the same series of textbook, so we do Chinese 1, 2, and 3.  After this, there are books for Chinese 4 and AP Chinese in that same series.  However, we go into the book that is used at most colleges and universities in the U.S., but level two of that book, so really, we are skipping the books for Chinese 4, Chinese Level 1 Part 1, and Chinese Level 1 Part 2, and are now in Chinese Level 2 Part 1.  Basically, we skipped three levels.  That probably accounts for the amount of work we have to do to make up for it.  The reason we go to this book is that this is how far the material on the AP exam tests. 

                Overall, in my school and across the nation, AP exam scores for all foreign languages are quite poor, almost to the point where you have to be a near-native speaker in order to get a 5 on the exam.  There are different parts of each exam for reading, writing, speaking and listening.  Reading is usually the easiest, as you must just interpret and integrate.  However, speaking and writing are a bit harder, as you must generate your own content and make it grammatically correct and fluent, and in my opinion, listening is the hardest, because the test uses voices that speak extremely quickly and use different sounding accents to keep students on their toes.  Even though all the odds seem to be against me, it is my goal to get a 5 on the AP Chinese exam when I finally take it.

Caesar Is Home

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Caesar Is Home

                We recently switched to DirecTV for our TV, and we have several movie channels that just play movies that have recently came out of theaters and are no longer new releases at movie rental stores.  One of my favorites of these movies is Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which is about a scientist who creates a virus that can cause neurogenesis, the growth of new brain cells.  He tests it on his pet chimpanzee, who is eventually taken to animal control for beating the hell out of one of the neighbors.  Later, the chimpanzee, named Caesar, unleashes the virus on all the apes in the facility, and they proceed to take over the city of Oakland. 

                Although this situation probably is impossible within the next few centuries, I still am very intrigued by the whole idea.  I am amazed by the strength of these apes, and I wish that I had that kind of strength.  I often joke with my friends that if I had my brain in a chimpanzee’s body, I could easily take over the world.  One of the most obvious advantages that apes have over humans is their incredible hand and arm strength.  As shown in the movie, chimpanzees can easily climb up a giant redwood tree, while an extremely fit human would take somewhere from thirty minutes to an hour to do this.  Another clear strength that we humans lack is their jaw.  Humans still have extremely powerful jaw muscles, which are pound-for-pound the strongest muscles in our bodies, but apes’ jaws are tens of times stronger, and are valuable tools and weapons in the wild.

                In fact, one theory of humans’ divergence from apes throughout evolution is that a mutation in a gene for jaw strength allowed humans’ skulls to grow much bigger as they were no longer held down by the powerful jaw muscles, and this led to larger brains and dramatically increased intelligence.  I would like to have this, but then have the gene replaced with that of our ancestors, so that my jaw muscles would be as powerful as an ape’s.  In Planet of the Apes, the chimpanzees’, orangutans’ and gorillas’ intelligence increased exponentially in a very short period of time, and this is simply unrealistic.  There is no way that this fast of a neurological change could happen in any species on Earth.  However, I still am a big fan of the movie.

Napoli's

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Napoli's

                Last night, I went to a new restaurant for the first time called Napoli’s.  It is an Italian restaurant, and we decided to try it out instead of going to Olive Garden.  I don’t think I’m going to go to Olive Garden ever again.  Napoli’s is now, without a doubt, my favorite restaurant. 

                It is somewhat similar to Olive Garden in the sense that they bring you an unlimited supply of bread, but instead of breadsticks, they bring these amazing rolls that are hands-down the best bread that has ever entered my mouth.  Also, in contrast to Olive Garden, Napoli’s has raspberry iced tea, my favorite drink, and it is very high quality.  I ordered spaghetti, as I am a very boring, monotonous eater, and it was absolutely delicious. 

                The service at Napoli’s is also incredible.  It isn’t a huge restaurant, so you don’t have to wait forever for the server to come around to check on everything.  Our waitress literally was giving us refills or more bread about every two minutes.  Also, there was a guy with a heavy Italian accent that seemed to be just walking around to all the tables, as if he was assigned to every table in the whole place.  Then, the manager came through, asking how everything was, an occurrence that only happens about one out of every ten times that I go to other restaurants. 

                I wasn’t fortunate enough to need to use the restroom facilities, so I don’t have any information about those, but based on the rest of the restaurant, they were probably extremely clean and nice.  The restaurant had soft, dim lighting, which I thought was pleasant and peaceful.  As this is a very genuine Italian restaurant, it served a wide variety of wines, but it is still a very family-friendly environment.  Napoli’s is a nice, quiet restaurant, and there is no bar scene to contribute to chaos and noise. 

                I’m not sure whether there are other Napoli’s’ in the United States or the rest of the world, but I doubt it, as it seems like a family-owned, high-quality small restaurant.  As more and more people try it out, I definitely see them needing to expand or move to a larger building to accommodate the thriving business.  Again, Napoli’s is now my favorite restaurant, and I can’t wait until the next time I get to go there.  Anyone that lives in the Cedar Rapids metropolitan area, I would definitely recommend going to Napoli’s.

PSAT

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PSAT

                This morning, I took the PSAT, which is the test that you take as a junior to qualify for the National Merit Scholarship.  This entire scholarship is based on your score for this one test, and you only get one chance.  Is it fair to base so much financial compensation on a single test?  What if someone is having a bad day, or maybe they just didn’t do their best on this one test?  Maybe someone isn’t in good test-taking ‘shape,’ and they become fatigued and worn down throughout the long, gruesome test. 

                I think the answer is yes, this system is fair.  Even though it isn’t appealing to most people, everyone gets the same chance, and no one really has any real advantages, so I think there isn’t anything unfair about it.  If you don’t get the score you want, oh well!  It’s not the end of the world, and the National Merit Scholarship is only about $2500, a relatively small amount compared to other scholarships that are widely available.  For me, I just want to be a National Merit Scholar for the prestige, as I plan to get numerous other scholarships already. 

                I used to grow very tired throughout the course of this type of test, but after having more experience taking these tests, I can now do them with little stress or mental fatigue.  One thing that I really like about the PSAT and SAT is that the only areas tested are math, reading and writing.  Or, readin’, writin’, ‘rithmetic.  On other tests such as the ACT, science is also tested, but really it is just interpretation of studies.  On the Iowa Assessments and ITEDs, numerous other subjects are included, such as social studies, reference materials, punctuation, etc.  I think that the SAT system better measures intelligence with its more centralized, core testing areas. 

                My only weakness on the test is vocabulary, but I don’t mean that my vocabulary is bad by any stretch.  It’s just that they use very complicated, learned words that don’t very often slip into everyday conversation or even formal writing and textbooks.  Believe me, if I don’t know these words, nobody does.  However, I think that the math sections of all high school standardized tests are far too easy, and that they don’t distinguish between good, great, and the very top.  Anyone that is a relatively good math student should score extremely well on the math portions of these tests, if not perfect.

                I believe that though standardized tests have some disadvantages, they are overall the quickest and most efficient way to measure the intelligence of high school students.  That’s why they are so widely used.



#RHONJ

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#RHONJ

                Since my mom basically rules the house, we watch her shows on TV every night.  One of her favorite shows to watch is Real Housewives of New Jersey/New York/Orange County/Whatever.  She likes to watch it because she has a pretty stressful life, and watching that ‘trash’ helps her unwind and relax.  I used to absolutely hate these shows, but now that I have watched them for so long, I actually kind of enjoy them.  Because I watch it so much, I know what’s going on, and watching these crazy people and their ridiculous problems amuse me. 

                Although we watch all the different cities of Real Housewives, the one we most often watch is New Jersey.  I used to think Caroline was the most reasonable of the housewives, but now I’m just tired of her crap, and she annoys the hell out of me.  Now, I think that Jacqueline’s husband is the most reasonable person on the show, because he knows when to keep his mouth shut, and he isn’t constantly looking for unnecessary drama.  Theresa is obviously the craziest person on the show, and no one will ever forget her table flip a few seasons ago.  I really don’t like her kids either; they just seem like a bunch of spoiled brats.

                I find Richie very funny, just because he is a total goofball and always seems to be semi-drunk.  I also think Joe Giudice’s ‘who cares’ antics are hilarious.  I used to think Jacqueline was okay, but recently she seems to be very emotionally fragile and is losing her mind, so now I’m not a very big fan of her.  Her daughter is probably the most low-life character on the entire show, which doesn’t make much sense because her parents are overall pretty decent people.

                Anyway, I don’t enjoy watching Real Housewives because I like the drama, but rather because I just find it relaxing to watch other people’s problems.  I know that sounds a bit evil, but these people signed up for this; what do they expect to happen?  No matter what kind of turmoil they’re going through, they’re still making gobs of money, so they can’t be that upset.  I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Real Housewives is one of my favorite TV shows of all time.  Go figure.

It Gets Better

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It Gets Better

                If you’ve ever gone to high school, you know that there are obvious stereotypes that most people fit into.  One of these stereotypes is ‘the populars.’  I have to say that they are my least favorite, and about ninety percent of people probably agree with me.  They think they are popular and cool, but what they don’t realize is that they are only popular among themselves.  Seriously, no one else gives a damn.  I especially hate how they think they are better than everyone else, when in reality, they will be the ones working minimum wage jobs their entire life.

                Another big group present in the high school atmosphere is ‘the nerds.’  Ten percent of these people have no social life, and waste their life on their computer that they built in their basement.  However, unfortunately for the other ninety percent, people identify this entire group by the description of the ten percent, and it is assumed that all the other ‘nerds’ are exactly the same.  This isn’t true, obviously.  It needs to be clarified whether 1) nerds are only the ten percent that spend their life in front of their self-built computers, never interacting with another human, or 2)nerds are people that are at the upper end of the intelligence spectrum, deserve more respect than anyone else, and will grow up to run the entire world, bitch.

                The point that I’m trying to make is that how others perceive you in high school has nothing to do with how successful you will be in your adult life.  People that think they are cooler and better than you will be the ones making your McDonald’s burgers and cleaning up your puke on the floor, and the poor nerds will probably be the billionaires that all the women cling to.  Don’t try to be cool, just be yourself.  You’ll get a lot farther that way, and people that you went to high school with will fall out of your life completely.

                The people that I feel bad for are the high school kids that take their own life.  Despite those airheads that say “High school is the best time of your life,” in reality, it is probably the worst time of your life.  One really awesome teacher that I respect said, “I feel bad for people that think high school is the best time of your life.”  It shouldn’t be!  For any normal person, your life will probably continue to improve from when graduate from high school to the end of your life.  Therefore, taking your own life before even finishing high school is just giving up to the adversity that everyone has to go through.

My Truck

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My Truck

                I was driving with my sister in the car to our first band competition of the season, totally excited and ready to go.  It was a little before seven o’ clock in the morning, and dew was plastered all over my beautiful black 1990 Nissan truck.  I turned on the windshield wipers to get it off, but it stayed fogged up as a result of our warm breath condensing on the inside of the car.  I pulled out of the driveway, and the brilliant sun was directly in line with my path down the street, going through the micro-droplets on the windshield, making it very hard to see.  I started down the road.  The thought just started going through my mind:  “I hope nothing’s in the w-” BOOM.  I had totally missed the giant white trailer right in front of me, and smashed right into it at about twenty miles per hour. 

                My truck is now sitting in the driveway, a few weeks later, with its front totally crushed in.  The coolant tank evidently was punctured in the crash, and the bluish-green coolant juice spilled all over the concrete, making a glowing green stain.  The truck was my first car, and I really loved it, despite its age and bumpiness.  I actually almost started crying in my dad’s car on the way to school in preparation for the band competition.  I still cringe every time I go out the front door and see the bashed-in face of my truck.

                The even worse part is that the guy that we bought the truck from loves the truck even more than I do, and he came over to our house to look at it, and I felt absolutely terrible.  It was his dad’s truck, who lived in Texas on a cattle farm.  He bought it back from us and is going to have it fixed up again (it has already been in multiple wrecks), but it is currently still sitting in our driveway. 

                No matter what kind of new nice cars I get throughout my life, there will always be a place in my heart for my truck, and I think I will probably eventually buy another one that is just like it.  I don’t know why I can get so attached to something like a car, but I guess it’s just because I really care for my possessions.  My parents bought me a bright blue Mazda 3, and if anything can adequately replace my truck, that’s it. :)

The Zombie

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The Zombie

                A couple weeks ago, between a Monday and a Tuesday, I stayed up until three o’ clock in the morning writing four essays for my AP U.S. History class which were due on the Tuesday.  I got them done, but this started my course of sleep deprivation which continued through last week.  That night was when I got totally thrown off, and for the next three or four days, I was only able to get five or six hours of sleep each night, and felt like a total zombie during the day.  I skipped classes and went home at lunch a couple times just to take a nap.  I have not gotten enough sleep and felt quite tired many times before, but I believe this was the first time that my serious lack of sleep had started to degrade my health.

                In addition to all the common symptoms of tiredness, such as drowsiness, slowed reactions, irritation and physical fatigue, I went into a considerable depression and started to see things that weren’t really there.  For the first four to five hours after waking up in the morning, I was literally fighting to stay awake, let alone concentrate normally in school.  I started having severe mood swings that caused my parents to start forcing me to skip classes to come home to sleep.  Also, in AP Psychology, we also happened to be learning about sleeping and sleep debt, which I was accumulating a lot of, and I was regrettably informed that the brain hangs on to this ‘sleep debt’ for at least two weeks, negatively affecting the body and mind in numerous ways.

                Now, on the Sunday almost two weeks after the Monday-Tuesday marathon, I think I am finally feeling better, but as I didn’t go to sleep until 1:30 or two o’ clock last night due to a marching band competition, I still don’t think I am very close to one hundred percent.  Until this recent stretch, I haven’t really taken sleep loss seriously, but now that I can see its effects very clearly, I will probably avoid it at all costs in the future.  I don’t think I’m going to forget anytime soon the terrible feeling that goes along with it, not to mention the strange dreams, random sounds, and the humans and animals that aren’t really there when you try to talk to or touch them.

Meoooowwww

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Meoooowwww

                I can’t remember how many times my doctor has told me, “Get rid of those cats; you won’t get sick anymore!”  Despite my allergy to cats, my family owns two cats, both of which shed incredible amounts of hair all over the house, often making my life miserable.  For this reason, we must keep the door to my room closed at all times, because if they get on my bed, I’m a few hours of sleep away from a sinus infection.  Any time we forget and leave the door open, they luxuriate on my bed, rolling around with hair flying through the air. 

                The thing about pet allergies is that people aren’t allergic to the pets’ fur, but rather are allergic to their saliva.  However, since cats bathe by licking themselves all over their body, their saliva therefore gets all over their hair, which falls out and gives people allergies.  One way to take care of this problem would be to give the cats baths every few days, but after my mom did went through that experience many years ago, we have decided that it’s just not worth it.  I can just live with having some pretty nasty allergy problems once in a while.  When the cats get into my room, we just change the sheets, and this happens more often than a normal person would normally change their sheets. 

                Anyway, the reason I keep my cats despite being allergic to them is because they are comforting little animals; little friends.  They feel like they are a part of our family, and they respond to their name by meowing and getting all excited.  When I’m stressed out with schoolwork or whatever, they come by me and start purring.  I think they can tell our feelings by the smells we give off.  It’s similar to the ‘fear scent’ that they can pick up from each other.  I also prefer cats over dogs, partially because they are fastidious enough to go to the bathroom in a litter box, as opposed to dogs, which you must walk and then pick up their poop. 

                I think pets are a healthy addition to any family, because they are generally more beneficial than detrimental.  They provide a source of exercise, and are very soothing in times of discomfort.  Even in families with pet allergies, I would sometimes still recommend having pets because of the many advantages they bring.

Technologically-Challenged Parents

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Technologically-Challenged Parents

                When I was in seventh grade, I started asking my mom and dad if they would consider adding texting to our cell phone service.  Every time, I was instantly shot down with a firm “No!” and given endless reasons why not.  First of all, they said, it is a waste of five dollars a month that we don’t need in any way.  Second, it encourages social isolation.  Third, it is annoying for the adults and too slow.  Fourth, it would give you arthritis in your thumbs.  Fifth, it would make our grades suffer.  Sixth, it would lead to drugs and alcohol.  The list goes on and on.  However, when they finally gave in and accepted texting, they quickly realized how great it is, and now they constantly rave about how they should have gotten it earlier.

                My mom especially loves texting, because it is the fastest way to communicate with a teenager, it is very quick and convenient, you don’t have to talk at length with people that you are trying to deliver a short message to, you don’t have to worry about disturbing a silence with a phone call, bad service doesn’t garble letters like it does spoken words, on and on and on.  However, ever since the whole smartphone with internet thing came about, I have been trying to convince them that this is another necessary addition to our cell phone service.  Again, I have always been shot down, because it was too expensive and all the same reasons they shot down texting.  I tried to tell them that they would finally get it and would love it just as much as they loved texting, but they just wouldn’t hear it.  Now, they have finally warmed up to the idea, and three of us will be getting iPhones within the next month, and my dad will when his contract is up. 

                My mom is raving about how great it is going to be before we have even gotten them, just like texting.  I swear, parents just don’t understand technology.  They sarcastically talk about how they are so stupid and need the kids to figure out all the technology, but it really is true.  They truly don’t understand their slowness and tardiness with the new great technology.  I will admit that having internet on a cell phone at this point is still a bit excessive, but as most people do now, they expect you to have it too, and it will probably become more or less a necessity within a short period of time.

Back to Kindergarten

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Back to Kindergarten

                I am currently enrolled in six AP classes, participate in marching band, have a decent social life, and have numerous other activities that don’t come to mind at the moment.  I’m generally not opposed to doing hard work, and can do it under stress and extremely limited time.  But for this reason, I have little patience for homework ‘projects’ that are basically art projects that the average second grader could construct.  They are a waste of my time, and I have yet to find any benefit that comes along with them. 

                For my AP Psychology class, I have to somehow build a model of the brain.  This isn’t totally useless, because it will probably make me think a little bit about the different parts of the brain and what not.  My problem with this assignment is that half of the points on the grading criteria are based on ‘creativity’ and ‘colorfulness.’  I will have you know that I successfully graduated from kindergarten in one year; isn’t that enough of this kind of nonsense to last me my whole life?  It is these kinds of major time-consuming projects that really get on my nerves.

                Another, more infuriating example of this kind of assignment that comes to mind was last year in my tenth grade language arts class, in which I had to make a giant collage of words and images cut out of magazine pages that I thought ‘described’ me.  If you can’t already tell, I have no tolerance for this crap, and my mom generously offered to do it for me.  I’m not going to turn down that great of an offer.  In contrast to the brain model project, this one truly had no purpose or benefit to me in any way. 

                In conclusion, I personally believe that I go to school to learn a few relevant facts, in addition to learning ‘how to learn’ in preparation for college and the rest of my life.  If I wanted to learn how to color, draw and be artistically creative, I would go to some kind of private art school.  However, since this isn’t what I desire, I just go to a normal public high school.  I would much appreciate if my homework were limited to things that have some use in my learning, and will be advantageous to me in the long run.

Adventures at Walmart

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Adventures at Walmart

                Earlier tonight, I went to Walmart to buy some supplies in order to make a model brain for AP Psychology.  At first, I had imagined that I would get a styrofoam head and shoulders, and then cut open the head and somehow make a brain to put inside.  However, these apparently don’t exist, so I decided I would settle for a plain styrofoam ball, but this also didn’t work out, because there weren’t any of reasonable size to represent a head.  In the end, I bought six small tubs of play-doh to mold the brain by hand.

                During the time between taking the play-doh off the shelf and getting back into the car, I developed a hypothesis as to why some people are tempted to shoplift.  I had always thought that these people had backwards morals, thought they would get away with it, had a serious shortage of cash, and such.  Many people probably do steal for these reasons, but tonight I learned another possible reason, and that is lack of unlimited patience.  It was only about 7:30, and as Walmart is a twenty-four-hour store anyway, there was no reason behind their excessive slowness.

                The five or six open checkout lanes in the entire store were totally packed, so my mom and I went to one of the two open self-checkout lanes.  There were about eight in the area, but God forbid one of those lazy-ass workers would have to go through the labor of opening another.  Everyone knows that those self-checkout machines are pieces of trash that need constant maintenance and never work without assistance, and this particular employee was taking full advantage of it. 

                There were two half-naked riff-raff stoners in front of us, and they literally needed help after scanning each one of their fifty to sixty items.  This female employee seized her opportunity to flirt with them during each one of these encounters, which I wouldn’t have even noticed if my mom hadn’t pointed it out to me.  She also brought up another great point.  The comment she made was only half-sarcastic:  “This is the reason why people steal.”  Just the amount of time wasted in line to purchase goods may be enough of a reason for some people to justify their shoplifting.  The sad thing is that I don’t blame them.  It was absolutely excruciating.  To top it off, once it was finally our turn, the girl gave us rolled her eyes and gave us nothing but sass when the machine acted up for us.

Family Discipline Dilemma

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Family Discipline Dilemma

                A couple of weeks ago, my dad put a punishment on my sister for not getting her work done.  However, she isn’t the only one that is ending up being punished.  My mom, my sister and I are all off our contracts for our phones, and would all like to get the new iPhone 5.  However, since my sister has been behind on her schoolwork, my dad told her that she doesn’t get a new phone until she catches up on all her work and demonstrates that she can get it done on a regular basis for a month.  He then set the date in stone, October 31^st.  Since she doesn’t get a phone, we all don’t get our phones, because we need to buy them all together in order to save anywhere up to one hundred dollars.  Therefore, we are all being punished for my sister’s problem.

                My sister finally got caught up with all her work today, and normally my dad would be happy enough and lighten the punishment almost to nothing.  However, he is very serious this time, and won’t budge.  My first thought was, ‘damnit, _______, why can’t you just get your freaking crap done?’  Then, I grew indignant toward my dad, who invented this whole stupid deal.  Keep in mind that I haven’t said anything yet.  To any normal person, this would be an obvious total burn to my mom and me, who aren’t involved in the situation.  My dad isn’t punishing us on purpose, but that’s just the way it worked out, because of Verizon’s discount when buying numerous phones at once.

                Most teenagers would explode at this unjustified catastrophe, quickly suggesting that my sister should pay the difference that we would have paid if we all got our phones together, so that my mom and I could get our phones immediately.  But let’s be reasonable here.  My sister has developed this bad habit of not getting her crap done, and realistically, she needs this.  I ask myself how much I really need this phone, and it’s not very much.  It definitely isn’t going to kill me to wait another four or five weeks.  And maybe this will get through to my sister and break her bad habit of extreme procrastination to the point of lateness.  Any normal kid in my situation would be furious, but I’m not a normal kid.  Maybe I should just wait this out.

Pinyin

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Pinyin

                Most people look at a language such as Chinese or Japanese and wonder how you would type characters of these languages into a computer.  Luckily, I have studied Chinese for three years, and can answer this question, for Chinese at least.  Common belief is that in these countries, there are giant keyboards that consist of every possible character in the language, but this is definitely not the case.  The most common input method for Mandarin Chinese is Pinyin, pronounced peen-yeen.  It directly translates to ‘spell sound.’  Basically, it uses English letters to spell out how the Chinese words sound, with some letters assigned different sounds that aren’t really used in English or other European languages.  When a word is typed in, a box with characters that correspond to that sound pops up, and one must select the correct character he/she intends to use.  Again, this is the most common input method, and is the method taught at most schools around the world. 

                Pinyin is a phonetic-based input method, meaning that it uses sounds to input characters.  There are at least ten other phonetic-based systems like this.  Phonetic-based methods are easy to learn, but limit speed, as the correct character must constantly be selected after each character.  However, there are also dozens of stroke-based or shape-based input methods, which assign each of the different strokes or radicals to keys on the English keyboard, and these are sequentially typed to literally ‘write’ the word, in a sense.  Although these methods are more difficult and take more time to learn, people that use them are much faster than those who use phonetic-based methods.  The most common stroke-based Chinese input method is called Wubi, pronounced woo-bee.  I would assume that Japanese and Korean input methods are similar to the Chinese methods.

                There are a few different ways to gain the ability to use Pinyin or other systems onto your computer.  First of all, all Windows computers come with CDs that contain software to install East Asian, Arabic, and many other character-using languages onto your computer.  Macintosh computers probably have a way to install this software also, but I am not familiar with them.  Also, there are hundreds of websites on the internet where you can type in Pinyin, and it will display characters which you copy-and-paste wherever you desire.  Basically, if you have internet, you can type in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, or any language you wish.

Movies in Schools

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Movies in Schools

                Yesterday, we had two marching band competitions.  I know you automatically think we’re not cool, but get over yourself, because we’re a lot cooler than you think.  Anyway, the second competition was two hours away, so we took three charter buses to get there.  People can bring movies for us on the way, and we vote on which one(s) we want to watch.  Last weekend, we watched the entire first season of the Big Bang Theory.  However, this week, someone brought The Hunger Games, and one of our directors said we couldn’t watch it because it was too violent.  Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, on the other hand, was fine.  She obviously hasn’t seen either of these movies within her period of memory, so we were subjected to her whimsical assumptions.

                The Hunger Games was made so that a considerable amount of the violence present in the books was not shown, because they wanted it to be PG-13, as most people reading the book were from junior high through college, and if it were rated R, many possible viewers would be turned away.  There is still some violence, but nothing you wouldn’t see if you were leisurely flipping through the channels on regular TV.  Transformers, if you don’t know, is constant violence and clashing of metallic robots, and also happens to be one of the loudest movies I have ever seen.  It is also rated PG-13, but in its explanation, it warns about violence and crude and sexual content.  It is safe to assume that virtually every high school kid has seen movies that are more ‘unsuitable’ than this, and just about any movie that someone brings would be fine for us to watch on the bus.

                Our director is overall a good lady, and very skilled at her job, but in my personal opinion, she isn’t familiar enough with popular movies to make judgments about what we can and can’t watch.  She would be better off just asking a few of the parents what is okay.  Literally everyone on our bus was screaming and chanting for Hunger Games, and started booing when one of those poor moms went against their will and put in Transformers.  Hardly anyone stayed awake to watch it.  I just think that Michelle Obama is influencing our lives enough with this new healthy food nonsense at lunch, and that the rules for movies and films in schools and school activities need to be lessened.

No Cheating

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No Cheating

                The media and thousands of food companies have convinced the public that it is possible to be a healthy person and to obtain all necessary nutrients from a few little trick foods and products.  However, the statistics they use to back up their data are almost always misleading and flawed, and therefore shouldn’t be blindly believed.  Three examples of this I will discuss are hand sanitizers, multivitamins, and cereal.

                First of all, hand sanitizers, for all we know, could lead to the extinction of mankind.  Some people use hand sanitizer in a religious manner, believing that all of the germs on their hands will magically die and not be a threat to them.  This is definitely not the case.  Although most hand sanitizers claim to kill 99.99% of germs, in reality, they only kill about 30-40% at their peak performance.  Also, since bacteria reproduce so quickly and easily, the few individual bacteria that are resistant to the active ingredient in the hand sanitizer will thrive, and we will soon have billions of bacteria on our hands against which our sacred hand sanitizer is useless.  This concept also applies to the overuse of antibiotics, so within the next 20-30 years, we may have no way to fight against an epidemic, as all of our drugs have been rendered worthless by our abuse of them.

                Secondly, multivitamins aren’t really all that they are cracked up to be.  While they technically contain much more of our vital nutrients than we need per day, we don’t know enough about how these nutrients and vitamins are absorbed into the body to determine whether or not we are actually getting the benefit.  Therefore, as Sheldon in the Big Bang Theory says, we may be just paying for a lot of very expensive urine!

                Lastly, cereal.  While dozens of cereal brands boast that they contain 12+ essential vitamins and minerals, the reality is that these too cannot be used by the body.  For example, a given cereal brand may claim to contain 200% daily value of iron.  However, this iron comes from metal shavings that are mixed into the cereal, and this form of iron cannot be absorbed and used by the body.  Therefore, this iron is just transported out of our body, with no benefit to us. 

                In conclusion, there is no way to cheat nature in this regard, and the only way to stay healthy and obtain all the needed nutrients is to eat a balanced diet with plenty of fruits and vegetables and to exercise regularly, as our ancestors have been doing for tens of thousands of years.