T1B57

I didn't have time to go to the food bank yesterday, so I made a mock food bank and ate canned food.

Last night it was really warm in the sleeping bag, and I only slept in my pajamas.

The no hygiene thing really bugged me last night, and then I realized how it must be for homeless people. It feels really weird not to brush your teeth at night, especially because I ate candy yesterday, so then I thought what homeless people must feel like because they won't have access to a sink and a place to brush their teeth (most of the time). I did brush my teeth/wash my face/etc. in the morning, though, because I have school... so I can't have no hygiene for four days straight... so I'm doing everything hygiene-related in the morning...

T1B56

OOHHHH... For some reason I typed this post up yesterday but I forgot to publish it.

DANG.

Okay, well, here's the post, just underneath... which is why T1B56 was written yesterday and published today...

I lied when I said my house has good insulation.

I found out yesterday that if you don't have a blanket, no amount of insulation will actually do you any good.

I mean, if there's no heat in the house, there will be no heat to be preserved! Light gives you heat, and so does body heat, if you're moving, if there's heat, etc. So when there's no heat to circulate, guess what? You get cold!

T1B55

Since we haven't officially started the project yet, there's not really much to blog about, and I don't think there will be until tomorrow. I was thinking about how I'm going to sleep tonight, and it's really very simple.

Obviously, I'm going to have to take off the pillow, blankets, etc. After that I'm going to put on my big heavy white parka (on top of a hoodie) and tie the arms shut. Why? Because if I tie them shut, they'll preserve heat. If I tuck my arms inside the body of the parka, I'll remain warm.

Simple.

And then I'll wake up in the morning, take off the parka, and I won't catch a cold.

T1B54

I don't really get Night 5 & 6 (for the homelessness project). By begging, are we supposed to beg food or beg money to beg money to get food? Or does that mean go to a shelter for food? What counts as "begging"?

And do we have to take photos to record?

T1B53

Apparently the saying, "a riddle wrapped up in a mystery inside an enigma" is by Winston Churchill.

The usage in speech was, "I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."

I was going to search for "a riddle" but then I found this cool phrase so I searched it, and it told me that it was a quote... by Churchill! So I'm putting it on my blog because I think it's interesting and it's an interesting coincidence as well.

T1B52

BLEEEUUUGGGHHH THERE'S NOTHING TO BLOG ABOUT

Okay riddle from dailybrainteaser.blogspot.ca:

Sherlock breaks into a crime scene. The victim is the owner who is slumped dead on a chair and have a bullet hole in his head. A gun lies on the floor and a cassette recorder is found on the table. On pressing the play button, Sherlock hears the message 'I have committed sins in my life and now I offer my soul to the great lord....following a gunshot. 

Sherlock smiles Of-course its a murder. 

Why did he think so?

SOO GOOD although this was pretty obvious to me. 

(Answer: [although I got that he couldn't stop the tape]: How can a dead person rewind back the tape himself ?)

Although LOOPHOLE ALERT! Duh, maybe he didn't die immediately, maybe he died AFTER rewinding the tape. Although I don't know if it's possible for him not to die immediately after a bullet to the head...

I've used although like.... 3 times in this blog post....

T1B51

I realized that to be productive its better to finish one thing, all together, instead of jumping back and forth between different things. If you do one thing and then go do another before the first one is finished, then when you go back to the first one you've lost your train of thought and then you have to spend more time re-doing it. It's like this with piano, like I'll start something that I don't really want to, then I'll go to an easier one, then I'll feel guilty and go back, and I'll have to rethink the whole song again, and then I'll get bored again, and so on and so forth. I sometimes take a really long time to play piano because I'm not focused, and I'll play a song like 6 times separately but not count them, and then I'll have to go back and play it 6 more times because my teacher wanted me to play that song 6 times. It gets really annoying/frustrating at times. But if I do one song/book at a time, I get done really quickly because then I can COUNT the times I play instead of doubling my workload.

It's like this sometimes with homework too, like for the short story for English, sometimes I write a bit then I get off track in my writing, so I save the thing as one draft, do something else, and then I'll go back to English and start all over again because I didn't like my first draft. I'm trying out a few different ideas, and I will go with the one I like most, but skipping around sometimes helps in English, and sometimes doesn't (obviously this draft of the same idea is NOT A GOOD TIME).

Grrr. Well, at least if I get the little-r homework done I'll be all HA, IN YOUR FACE to whoever doubts my work (mwahahahaha) and I'll have motivation for my harder homework. :)

T1B50

I'm posting a quote from one of my favourite series today.

"When they ran up to him, Percy said, "Hey," like they were just meeting for lunch or something. "You're alive!" Frank marveled. Percy frowned. "That fall? That was nothing. I feel twice that far from the St. Louis Arch." "You did what?""

-Percy, Frank, and Hazel, The Son of Neptune

There's a funnier one somewhere but I can't find it... I'll try and post it tomorrow :) (because I am really that boring and I must force upon you quotes from my favourite books MWAHAHAHAHA)

T1B48 and B49

A riddle that has fascinated me for a long, long time:

A town has 2 barbershops (and ONLY 2 barbershops), one on the west side, and one on the east. The one on the east end is incredibly messy, and the barber has terrible hair. The one on the west side has a clean and shiny shop, and the barber has neat hair. Now if you were visiting this town and wanted a haircut, which barber should you go to and why?

This is reverse psychology: you should go to the one on the east side. "Why?" you might ask. "His shop is messy, and he himself has terrible hair!"

Well, since the town has only 2 barbershops, that means that one barber has to cut the hair of the other, because obviously you can't cut your own hair. That means that the person with the neater hair had his hair cut by the other barber, and the barber with the messy hair (the east one) had to get his hair cut by the west barber. That means that the east barber has better cutting skills, judging by the hair he cut for the west barber. His shop is messy because many people come to get their hair cut by him. The west barber, on the other hand, has nice hair (cut by the east barber) and cut the east barber's hair for him, which is terrible, and his shop is clean because no one ever comes in it.

I know there are a lot of loopholes in this riddle, such as the fact that not everyone gets their hair cut by a barber and many mothers do excellent hair, and also that a shop can be cleaned, etc. BUT I DIDN'T MAKE UP THIS RIDDLE! :)

It's an excellent riddle, though, this is one of my favourites.

T1B47

Random fact from I don't know where: Apples keep you more awake and caffeine in the morning.

Good to know. My mother needs at least 1 cup of coffee a day to stay awake. Although I don't like regular coffee, and I don't drink it to stay alert, I like ice coffee because I like coffee and I like sweet stuff. Regular coffee smells nicer but tastes not as good :D.

People say you shouldn't drink coffee because it stunts your growth, so I'll just wait until I'm like 20 and be like, HA, I'm not growing anymore so I can drink coffee.

T1B46

Because Venus rotates very slowly on its axis (taking 243 days to make a complete rotation), a day on Venus is longer than its year.

From http://facts.randomhistory.com

Wouldn't it be cool to live on Venus? You'd be all, YEP, THIS DAY IS DEFINITELY LONG ENOUGH FOR ME. :D I GOT LOTS OF TIME... LOTS OF TIME... LOTS OF TIME...

T1B45

39. If you have 3 quarters, 4 dimes, and 4 pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar. 

The closest you can go is 99¢ with 3 quarters, 2 dimes, and 4 pennies. :P

T1B44

184. There is a McDonalds in Sedona, Arizona that has turquoise M (arches). They chose turquoise because the thought the yellow would clash with the landscape. It is the only turquoise McDonald's arch in the world. 

I like turquoise. I wish ALL the McDonalds in the world had turquoise arches! It would look so much prettier than the yellow ones! It would be like an M-shaped sea of perfect harmony! (I just made that one up :P)

Anyway, I am thinking about the Park-a-Park, and I forgot to mention this from like a week ago...

My PE class passes by the Park-a-Park sometimes, like we did for the two big runs, and I noticed that since most of the time it's rainy now, it was actually pretty much deserted (also it was during class time) but I think that they actually added, like, stairs and something else to it, I can't quite put my finger on what. It's actually really pretty, the seats and pots and things are really neat. I think that the Park-a-Park might do better in a public space, like outside the VPL Central Branch, because there is a general air of calmness and that you could actually observe there. Also, the people flow is better; I for one don't go outside to eat lunch or at lunchtime, so I don't think many people would see it at the school. I think, however, that during events like Clubs Day, where the big garage doors from the cafeteria are open, that would be more noticeable.

T1B43

66. Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building, it has about thirty percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes about eight floors for the cat to realise what is occurring, relax and correct itself. 

Cats are supposed to be able to always landon their feet, but I totally didn't know that it takes 8 floors for them to realize that!

T1B42

I'm getting a bit tired of salmon facts... (I wander really easily)... so let's do a random fact! (Notice how I like random everything?)

# 45 on a really cool random facts page I found on goodreads:

45. On average, people swallow 1.5 liters of urine when swimming in a public pool. 

I'm never going swimming again.

T1B41

When we were at the salmon run my dad and I both wondered why there were so many obstacles for the fish to cross. There was a mini waterfall at every other bend, and at the other ones there were bigger waterfalls. My dad said it might have been because they only wanted the stronger salmon to make it all the way, so the next generation of salmon were also strong. I think he was right, although I don't know if salmon genes get passed on in their offspring. 

Okay, I've just searched it up. Yes, they DO get passed on. Apparently in Norwegian rivers, the farmed salmon have been escaping and spawning with the wild salmon that could cause weakened salmon populations. There can be all sorts of problems caused by farmed salmon interbreeding with wild salmon such as less genetic variety, etc.

I don't really understand it all.

Also, this article was published I don't know when, so it could be pretty old.

It's still totally relevant and interesting though, because I think that by producing such a complicated course for salmon to swim through, they may be encouraging not just strength, but also they kill a LOT of salmon throughout this process, because if they are tired and can't swim anymore, they just dwindle there and the people at the farm just throw them away when they're dead. Which is really sad, and seems like it could have a negative effect somehow on salmon population/traits.

T1B40

My dad was wondering why some of the salmon we saw were so vividly red. I thought it was because of spawning.

HAHA! I WAS RIGHT!

Apparently, salmon turn pink during spawning season to indicate to their potential mates that they are of the same species and ready to spawn.

I actually totally didn't know that, I guessed randomly because a lot of species change when it is mating season. 

Also, salmon turn whitish when they die, which is kind of sad, but I saw a whole bunch of dead salmon at the sides of the rivers, and this one person who I think worked there was just picking them out and I was like HOW IS THAT FAIR, that so many salmon die and the strong ones get to spawn and everybody else just stays all sad and lonely and might possibly die because they jumped over the wrong side of the river, ran out of air, and didn't have enough oxygen to make it back.

POOR SALMON THAT DON'T MAKE IT ALL THE WAY...

And I might also mention that during my entire time at watching, I didn't see one single salmon (okay I saw one) make it all the way up to the biggest and last waterfall. :( I saw a whole bunch thrashing when they started slipping and some of the slipped and some of them didn't. During the very first bit when I think the salmon are tested first, there are 5 barriers in a row, and I saw some of the salmon leaping those successfully. I caught a few good pictures of them leaping like ACTUALLY IN MIDAIR, like you see on those salmon watching brochures, except mine are kind of blurry and aren't as bright and attractive looking.

T1B39

I saw the salmon run today at Weaver Creek, and that place a bit underneath it though I don't know what that bit was called, and it was so dang far away. The salmon were selected by people who worked in the place, and a ratio of about 3 males to 2 females is consistent. Only the salmon allowed passage into their facilities spawned there, others were either put back in the holding tank or released to spawn naturally. We watched the salmon climbing up the winding thing that mildly resembled a shallow curving river, and there were dying salmon all along the way, too tired to continue swimming, but there were many that did make it to the final mini waterfall. I'll post more on the trip later, because my brain is just BURSTING with facts, but I'll try to keep this short and sweet so it doesn't get boring (although I personally really like the salmon life cycle now that I've learned a little about it).

T1B37 & B38

ITS OUT ITS OUT ITS OUT!!!

AND I GOT IT I GOT IT I GOT IT!!!

FOUR DAYS LATER BUT I GOT IT!!!

THE HOUSE OF HADES!!!

CELEBRATION~

T1B35 and B36

I forgot to blog yesterday.

Riddle of the day from Riddle.com:

Something very extraordinary happened on the 6th of May, 1978, at 12:34 am. What was it?

The answer:

At that moment, the time and day could be written as 12:34, 5/6/78.

It's easy, but its fun :).

T1B34

OH MY GOD THE HOUSE OF HADES IS OUT TODAY THE HOUSE OF HADES IS OUT TODAY THE HOUSE OF HADES IS OUT TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

~HAPPY DAY ~HAPPY DAY ~HAPPY DAY

I've been waiting since LAST October for the House of Hades to come out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*EXCITEMENT*

I JUST LOVE THE HEROES OF OLYMPUS SERIES!!!!!!

THEY ARE MY ABSOLUTE FAVOURITE BOOKS, RIGHT UP THERE WITH HARRY POTTER!!!

PLUS THEY ARE MYTHOLOGY BOOKS!!!!!

ALL OF RICK RIORDAN'S MYTHOLOGY BOOKS ARE AMAZING!!!!!!!

PLUS I LOVE GREEK AND ROMAN MYTHOLOGY!!!!

AND EGYPTIAN!!!!!

AND NORSE, ONCE RICK RIORDAN STARTS WRITING ABOUT THOSE TOO!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

Sorry. Rant of excitement over.

T1B33

Awesome riddle I found on Yahoo Answers (not mine): There are people trapped on an island with no mirrors or anything to see their own reflections. They have no way to communicate with eachother except they can all understand the leader who rarely speaks. 100 of them have brown eyes, 100 have blue eyes, and the leader has green eyes. In order to escape the island, a person has to figure out his own eye color (This person cannot use communication or reflection to do it) and leaves the island that night. Everyone knows everybody else's eye color but don't know their own (for all they know, there could be 99 people with brown eyes and 101 with blue). Keep in mind, they all think alike and are perfect logicians. One day, the leader says "I can see someone with brown eyes". How many people leave the island? (Hint: on what night did they leave the island?) 

It's math.

The answer? Here it is: 100 brown eyed people leave on the hundredth night. Think of it logically. If there was 1 brown eyed, 1 blue eyed, and 1 green eyed with the same question, the brown eyed person would immediately leave on the first night because he knows he is the only possibility. If there was 2 brown and 2 blue, they would wait one night, and then one brown eyed guy would realize that the other one didnt leave and realize he has brown eyes because thats the only reason the other guy didnt leave. So two leave on the second night. If there was 3 and 3, they would leave on the third night. This can go on up until 100. 

I just found this and I thought it was really interesting, so I posted it.

T1B30, 31, 32

I find that whenever it happens to be the weekend I forget to blog. I play piano all day then I sometimes don't get to do homework at night.

So I forget to blog x-(.

Well HA, I am going to put a sticky on my piano that says "remember to blog" so I won't forget.

To have healthy brains, let's do another riddle! :D

This is a rather badly rhyming riddle, but it's interesting: 

Read my riddle, I pray. What God never sees, what the king seldom sees, and what we see every day. What is it?

It's actually not one of those ARRRGH IT'S SO OBVIOUS! riddles, it's one that carries some difficulty.

The answer? An equal.

It makes you want to hit yourself when you get it, but you know that it's not so simple that we overlook it. Just like the popular "nothing" riddle, you have to look at it in a different way to get it.

T1B29

I've always thought of to-do lists as an addition to my agenda, an easier way to organize. But then today I realized that I had a lot more assignments than I thought I had, so I pulled out my reusable todo list and when I put down all my subject tasks, I was like WHY DO I HAVE SO MUCH TO DO and that way I didn't forget anything I was supposed to do.

Also I feel like its just that satisfying to check something off of your list, and it makes me happy :).

See? There. I've checked off my daily AS blog entry and I feel better.

T1B28

It always seems impossible until its done. ~Nelson Mandela

It always seemed impossible to master Sketchup until I did it.

And I'm still trying to make my Sketchup model look "perfect" because I really want to get good marks on this and also because that's just the kind of person I am. 

Profound thought that suddenly occurred to me:

Good night.

T1B27

I have no idea what colour your eyes are, Mr. Olson, but if they are blue, then hurrah!

The answer to the riddle is what colour eyes "you" have because "you" are the bus driver.

I used this one for a quiz two years ago to pick table order at a luncheon, and it was hilarious because people just started calling out random eye colours and I couldn't see their eye colour from where I was standing.

Nevertheless, the quiz was a reasonable success.

On a totally other note, today I realized that it is easier to remember things if you write them down. That way, you have a backup, but also, by writing it down you actually are able to remember it better because you see it on paper. And also I realized that because I often finish a homework, forget it, and almost end up doing it again.