Monday, November 9, 2009

Hero project reflection

I think a hero becomes a hero when they do something positive in your eyes. In this project we had to choose some one that we thought was heroic, interview, and then write a story of why they were heroic using the information from the interview. We had to do three or more drafts; this was hard for me because on one draft I didn’t write two pages so I had to do another one. In this project I learned a lot about perspective like how someone sees something could be totally different in some one else’s eyes. A challenge I encountered was that I didn’t get a lot of information from my interview so it was harder to write a two-page paper. If I did this project again I would probable try to be more prepared for the interview and remember how long the paper was supposed to be. A habit of mind I used in this project was evidence because we had to show why the person we chose was a hero using sensory detail.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

origin of zero

What strikes me about this article is that there was so much trouble in making a number that means nothing, and makes me wonder what the process was when they came up with all the numbers. We decide who discovers what when it’s the first one who recorded proof of them discovering it. Mesopotamians discovered zero because they were the first to create and record them discovering it. I don’t think that the person who came up with the idea of zero was the same person discovered it because it could have been thought up a while ago but some one wrote it down and put it to use. I think map makers and sailors probable spread word of zero by traveling to so many places.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

character sketch


Code Blue
His eyelids snapped open he looked around the small dark room where he and the other interns stay. He hears the sharp sound of and alarm saying code blue, which in medical terms meant a life or death situation. He rushes down to the main room as fast as an African swallow, and sees some of his colleagues. “I heard there was a code blue,” he said out of breath.
“Oh I’m sorry there’s no code blue,” said one of the doctors.
“Are you sure, maybe we should check on some of the important patients just in case?”
“Ok, we might as well since we’re up”
They walked down the long hall their steps echoing every time they took a step. They checked most of the rooms then came to a room of a 3-week-old infant that was sick. They quietly walked into the room and the mood intensified as they realized that the infant wasn’t breathing. They had to act fast. Heart racing he rushed to the side of the infant’s bed and tried to resuscitate it. Eventually he resuscitated the baby and the baby woke up again. This was one moment, which helped him to decide to be a pediatrician.
He was just an intern and he saved an infants life. He went to medical school at the University of Arizona and out of 1000 applicants he was one of the 32 to get in, and is currently a doctor. He says his reason for helping people is that “Everybody’s here only a certain length of time on this earth, usually less than 100 years, and you should do something that helps other people in your time” He likes to get to know his patients both professionally and socially, and enjoys working with kids more than working with adults.
If you ask him if he thinks he is a hero he will say no because he says he’s just doing his job his description of a hero is an old black woman with 6 kids who works 3 jobs just to make sure her kids are happy. His personal here is Pat Tillman who was a football who could have been one of the best, but after 9/11 he gave up his big paying job and his fame and joined the military to fight for his country. But I think Dr. George Darwin is a hero to me and to all the lives he’s saved and people he’s helped.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Literary Devices blog


Catching the signal from one of her friends, Angela brushed her skirt, took a deep breath and walked to where he was sitting. She was a snail while nervously walking to his chair. She was shaking like an earthquake when she got to him. Her mind flashed back to the time he had smiled at her and asked, “hey can I borrow a pencil”. “Hey Angela what’s up?” he said carelessly
“Um I uhhh” She said biting her lip as she snapped back from her flashback
“Is something wrong?”
“I uhhhh…. Never mind” She said as she walked away shamefully
“That chick is as crazy as a cuckoo bird cashing a cats check,” he said to his friends
Angela walked slowly back to her chair and plopped down in it as her friends gave her comforting stairs of affection.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

OMT vignette

Sonic Silence

My heart raced with excitement just before we stepped on stage. My memory flashed back to the rehearsal we had an hour ago. It took us three try’s to get it right then and that was only in front of the other bands now it was in front of a crowd of strangers. We made a dramatic entrance as the announcer spoke “They say just before a sonic boom there’s SONIC SILENCE”.

The drummer clicked us off. Click, click, click, click, and our bass player came to life and played. I waited for the part where I started playing while I looked into the audience and estimate how many people there were. There were a lot more than I expected. It was like a sea of random faces. Then my guitar sprang to life as I started to play. It started off great we were almost like a recording. Then came the second verse which we weren’t very confident about. Our singer started to sing but it was like someone had stolen the right words from her memory. We realized she must have forgotten the lyrics and was improvising which was fine except the rest of us couldn’t figure out how long to play the verse it was like suddenly the whole world had changed.

Luckily after looking around at my band mates confusing faces we came to a silent agreement to start the chorus. We blazed through the chorus like a wild fire and continued onto the bridge. We played the bridge as the singer sang then came time for my guitar solo. I had been practicing it all week, but suddenly my mind went blank like someone had erased the chalkboard that was my memory. So I had to improvise. I was so nervous my hands were shaking like an Eskimo in the arctic so it was extremely hard to finish the solo.

The rest of the song was perfect right up until the ending which we hadn’t practice as much and in rehearsal we had done terrible. At that point everyone was lost. Everyone was following some one else like a confused conga line of doom. Then thankfully the drummer found an opportunity and signaled the ending.

We didn’t exactly know where to exit on the stage so we just left from the way came. We saw the other bands and they said “good job” and we wished them good luck and headed for the exit as excited as a little kid on Christmas morning. We confessed all of our mistakes and how relieved we were that the show was over. After all the bands had finished playing their songs everyone came outside and we reflected on how awesome everyone did. The energy after that show was intense everyone was so excited and relieved. The parents to pictures so they could remember the moment, but I knew I wouldn’t need a picture to remember this experience.

Monday, October 5, 2009

Sensory detail:sound

It sounds like a train going by a house making metal pipes shake. Knocking things off there shelves and waking the residents of the house. Then passes temporarily leaving the house in peace.

Then it starts sounding like a ghostly wail in a rickety old haunted house. Then the symphony of harmonicas and trumpets comes in. Joining the ghostly wail in it's sad lonely song and makes the room shake even more like it might cave in. Slowly scaring away everyone who comes near making the ghost wail more in it's loneliness.

Also it kind of sounds like a hollow metal pole being slammed against a hard metal wall making it vibrate violently. Shaking wildly back in worth making a weird swooping sound.

It reminds me of the sound of the sea of nothing in the yellow submarine movie. Hollow and ominous like there is nothing there, but makes a sound anyway just to be heard. It also reminds me of The Beatles song "Northern Song" the way you can complain about what it sounds like but it will still sound the same and there's no changing that. Also sometimes there's nothing to complain about.

Lastly it sounds like a lonely harmonica player playing his lonely song while locked in jail. Just like he's waiting for someone to join his sad song so maybe he might not be so lonely. Then he finds his song can't reach anyone so he stops playing.

click here for the link

Friday, October 2, 2009

The Locker Problem



Locker Problem

The locker problem was that there were 1000 lockers and each locker needed to be tested by being opened and shut. The first kid opened all the lockers then the second kid changed the state of every other locker then the third kid every three lockers etc…
After going through all the numbers we found there were 31 lockers open. Those specific lockers are open because they were changed the state of an odd number of times like open close open. Strangely all the open lockers are perfect squares like 1 4 9 16 ect... I think the perfect squares are all open because each perfect square goes up by an different odd number. More specifically every locker goes up by a higher odd number as shown in my diagram below. I think this effects why the lockers were open an odd number of times.

Monday, September 28, 2009

S.L.O.B What I did this weekend

She walked to the wall crying yet again. She wrote down her feelings of sorrow on the small slip of paper and put it on the wailing wall. She cried her eyes out for another few minutes then went back to June, Lily, Rosaleen, and Neil in the kitchen.

She noticed the burnt pancake in the trash and that lily was gone she started to hum "oh! susanna" which made June come and comfort her. Neil left after eating a pancake as May finally calmed down. June went to go practice her cello leaving May alone in the kitchen.

She started making another pancake as she thought about what lily might be doing and if she would want another pancake.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Order of Operations

3²(7+2)-32

3+4/2(5²)

8-4/2+5=6

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Favorite Fictional Character


From the 1968 film "yellow submarine" my favorite fictional character is Jeremy Hillary Boob Ph.D. he is a strange green and brown gopher with a blue face. He lives in the sea of nothing where John, Paul, George and Ringo in their yellow submarine appear after being sucked up by a vacuum monster. "ad hoc ad loc and quid pro quo so little time so much to know" this is one of Jeremy's favorite quotes and if you can't tell he always speaks in rhymes. John, Paul, George, and Ringo ask Jeremy if he can fix there engine, and being a multi talented guy Jeremy helps them as he says himself "eminent physicist, polyglot classicist, prize-winning botanist, hard-biting satirist, talented pianist, good dentist too". Sadly though he is very lonely, but Ringo takes pity on him and brings him to the yellow submarine and that's where his journey begins.

He is one of my favorite fictional characters because he's very unique and he looks at things in his own way. He may not be the coolest character in the movie but he saves the day on multiple occasions even if people don't appreciate him.

He is a special character to me because he always seems able to be happy no matter what happens. Also he always seem to have a sense of humor even in the tough times. Another thing i like about him is he always rhymes his sentences. Even though it's hard to understand what he is saying some time I'm sure almost everyone who saw this movie thinks that he brings a creative personality to the plot and makes the movie defiantly more interesting. So that is why Jeremy Hilary Boob Ph.D. is my favorite fictional character.

Friday, September 4, 2009

What Is Math? What is Physics?


To me to do math is to learn what makes things work and also to explain things. Math looks like explanations and today's technology. you can find math anywhere to explain something and what makes the technology work. Everyone uses math even if they don't realize it cause math has to do with almost everything.

I think physics is an explanation of the way people and animals move. I think we are doing physics right now because moving can be explained by physics. You can find physics by looking at anything because everything has something to with physics. I think everyone who moves uses physics cause movement is physics.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

30 things you didn't know about me


1. I play guitar
2. I wear a tie all the time
3. I play bass guitar
4. I'm in a band called Sonic Silence a.k.a. Lola and the Guys in Ties
5. I'm not much of a dancer
6. I write and record some of my own songs
7. I play an Epiphone Les' Paul
8. I also have an Ibanez acoustic guitar
9. I like pudding
10. My favorite band is the Beatles
11. I like British invasion,and punk music
12. I play baseball, and basketball
13. I'm a Quasi vegetarian
14. Last summer I got a henna tattoo of a tie
15. I have a sister
16. I've tripped under water three times
17. I can play almost every Beatles song on guitar
18. I'm a Christian
19. Once for charity I bought a goat and two chickens for a family
20. My Favorite soda is Cactus Cooler
21. My Favorite movie is Yellow Submarine
22. I have a Dog named scout
23. I always have my ipod with me
24. My second favorite band is relient k
25. I'm German and Dutch British
26. I trip a lot
27. For a week two ducks lived in my pool
28. My favorite color is orange/black/purple
29. I like lava lamps
30. My favorite baseball team is the White Sox