T2B41

I just realized that a debate is essentially a very organized, very structured, very long persuasive essay.

I was trying to tidy up my Reading List yesterday, and I came upon this very interesting article:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/2013/12/02/why-life-does-not-really-exist/

I read it and I realized that it basically did what debates do: take one side's argument, and tell you why it's wrong. In this case, they're disproving examples, which you're technically not supposed to do in debate, but it all comes down to the same idea that the essential definition is wrong.

I found this article pretty interesting, though. It kind of gives me the same feeling as a debate, if you know what I mean. Usually in tournaments, you argue both sides of the same resolution. You come up with arguments that, to me, make a lot of sense. You debate it, and you can form good arguments. But after a debate, sometimes I'll look at the resolution and say, "Heck, I just agreed with myself throughout the last round and now I totally don't see why I did." The individual arguments contribute to the resolution, but when I look at it from my glasses, from my perspective, with my opinion, I might not actually agree. People say the best debaters can take any side of a resolution and win, despite their personal beliefs. A truly great debate team can debate both sides of the same resolution in a tournament and win both. This article gave me the same feeling as a debate: I look at the individual arguments and I'm nodding all the way, and then I ponder the actual question and I'm like, "Heck no." I think it really just depends. I think I'm getting better at being objective in debates. It used to be harder for me to argue a side of the resolution that I didn't agree with, but I found that with time, the more I practice forming arguments, the more I can convince myself and debate well.

T2B40

I was trying to find an image of a stickman sticking out his chest for Socials.

Wait, that sounds really weird.

Okay so basically, we have this illustrated timeline project for socials. My first event is the crowning of Charles I. Mrs. Williams said we can draw stickmen if we can't draw (yay! thanks Mrs. Williams!) so I was trying to find one that looks are proud when he's being crowned.

I stumbled upon this really interesting site:

http://www.drawastickman.com

It's soooo cool. I won't even say anything about it. You have to play it to believe it. :P

(I seriously don't know how they did it. It's soooo amazing. Especially how you can draw anything and it still works! I think they just distort certain parts of the image or something. IT'S SO AWESOME)

T2B39

I found this the other day on the Percy Jackson fandom:

So true. And the comment up above, "So dam true" is referring to the Titan's Curse where Percy, Grover, Thalia, and Zoë go to Hoover Dam, and Zoë says, let's find the dam snack bar (like the snack bar of Hoover Dam) and Percy, Grover, and Thalia just totally crack up. They're tired, they've fought monsters for a week, they're hungry, and it sounds like damn so they start laughing like crazy. The thing is... Zoë's the lieutenant of the Hunters of Artemis, which means she's been alive for roughly two thousand years (they get immortality for vowing to be a maiden forever). She uses Old English, so she doesn't get it. And since then it's been a Percy Jackson inside joke. (In The Mark of Athena, Percy actually references it--Piper talks about the Doors of Death giving monsters a Nexus lane into the land of the living, and Percy says, "We've got a dam hole." When Piper asks, Percy just says, "Nothing. Inside joke.")

And then I found this on the fandom and I'm just like "Them" when I see the "So dam true". :D

T2B38

Okay, so I've gotta have a bit of context here.

On Christmas (actually, on any day), my family does this thing where we sometimes head out for breakfast, have no idea what we're doing afterward, someone proposes a crazy idea at breakfast and we go for it. Like on Wednesday, we went out, and during breakfast, my dad was like, "GUYS, LET'S GO SKIING," before I said, "WAIT DAD, we don't ski." But then he was like "Well, let's go anyways to just walk around and stuff." So then we went, but it was FREEEEEZING cold, and sadly, all the stores were closed. Including any potential coffee shops we might have gone into to warm up with coffee. We literally passed like 8 closed Starbucks in half an hour, so when we saw an open one we were like YESSSSSS and went it to buy coffee.

And that's how we get to the main point of this blog. I really like coffee. Like, really, really like. I don't really like espresso, but I like lattes and mochas. I got a mocha that day, but I got a headache by the end of the day and I only drank a little bit. I've noticed this before, too, sometimes, if I eat too much dark chocolate or drink mocha (only mocha, I don't get sick with any other coffee) I'll just feel a headache coming on, and I'll start feeling like I don't even want to LOOK at sweet things. I thought it was because mochas have a higher caffeine content, so I did a little bit of research.

Okay, so it's really complicated. Are you ready?

An espresso is basically hot water forced through coffee grounds, making the coffee really strong. So it's the strongest coffee, basically.

A cappacino (holy I can't even spell that) is (according to Seasoned Advice) is a 1:1:1 ratio of espresso, steamed milk, and foam. (So, a lot less strong.)

A mocha is basically the cappaccino (AAAHHH) with chocolate. It could actually be any coffee drink, espresso + milk, with chocolate added. Like a caffeinated hot chocolate. Which is why I'll stop ordering it now, because if I wanted caffeine, I wouldn't order it with hot chocolate. I actually don't want caffeine, 

A latte is basically a cappuccino (there we go) without the foam. (Seasoned Advice calls it a "wet cappuccino".) It's basically espresso, milk, and a little bit of foam for decoration.

There are soooo many other coffees, but honestly I won't type them out. (Seasoned Advice has good descriptors. I finally got the ratio, the other sites don't say how much espresso is in each 

So basically a mocha and a latte have the same amount of caffeine and now I don't know what it is in mocha that makes me sick. It might be the chocolate... I don't really like dark chocolate, but really I'm okay with everything else. I actually really like chocolate, but the dark stuff is too sweet and too bitter at the same time (I don't like the combo of tastes).

Still, I think I'm going to avoid mochas for now, because my brain doesn't like them. 

**OBTW: I found this pretty cool image online for the different coffee components, but it's rather low-resolution and I can't find a better image. I'll put it here anyways though:

This is a really interesting site about coffee facts, although I can't necessarily vouch for the accuracy (It doesn't look like a very trust-able source.) 

T2B37

I noticed that the randoms like referring to each other a lot:

Like, Harry Potter, Divergent, The Hunger Games, The Mortal Instruments, Percy Jackson, Narnia... those pop up everywhere, because everyone reads them. I think these kinds of images probably get reshared and "passed around" to loads of fandoms, especially because recently there's been a lot of good series being finished up. I haven't read Mortal Instruments yet but I've been trying to get it at a library or buy it or something. Even though these aren't the classic literature (Charles Dickens, Jane Austen), I still love these books. <3 I am a reader. :) (See what I did there? ^)

*Oh yeah, The Maze Runner trilogy's been pretty popular, too, because they're making it into a movie and there's been this buzz about it all over again.

T2B36

Merry Christmas! Sorry I forgot to blog yesterday, I was out all day. But I'm blogging now :)

Anyways, I found this on the Percy Jackson Google+ fandom and I was just like OMG THIS IS SO ME:

I WAS LIKE OMG YOU GUYS GET ME

T2B35

I LOVE THIS. I LOVE THIS. IT'S SO TOTALLY APPLICABLE, IT'S SO TRUE.

In a reader's/fangirl's world, THIS IS A COMPLIMENT. :D

T2B34

How cute are these? They'd be perfect for Christmas:

I realized, very sadly, on Friday (Red and Green spirit day for Winter Week) that I didn't own a single red/green item in my closet. The closest thing I found was a turquoise hoodie.

How sad is this? I'm a Spirit Exec and I don't have something red or green. :( I wore the turquoise hoodie though, 'cause (shhhh) it's close enough.

I'm going to start getting something red or green, because I need to prep for next year's Spirit Days. :P

T2B33

I swear I'm researching so many debate topics.

The English one's about drones, and right now I have another one about military-grade equipment for police. I'm getting mixed up, almost, because the topics are really similar--they're both (kind of?) related to war. (The English one is THBT drones should be illegal in warfare, and the other one is Be it resolved that the police be supplied with military-grade equipment, which we were debating in Debate Club the other day, and it essentially came down to police being militarized which is supposed to be reserved for war.)

Anyway, I'm now kind of confused as to which arguments can go towards which resolutions, but some arguments can actually apply twice, because they have really similar themes and effects.

I <3 debate :)

T2B32

I've been listening to a lot of Christmas songs lately. I actually noticed that a lot of "classic" songs will be sung by other artists. I really like Ariana Grande's version of Last Christmas because she adds more of the ... uh... I totally forget this word but I learned it in History 1... virtuosic? something like that... anyway, what I meant was she demonstrates her skill by altering the notes and the melody line.

They've seriously been playing this song everywhere, and now it's stuck in my head.

I remember reading about ear worms before, and apparently they have a simple, upbeat melody, and catchy, repetitive lyrics. They also have some sort of unusual part to it for you to remember. The repetitive lyrics thing is sooooo annoying. For example, if there's a really repetitive chorus of a song, and it just keeps playing over and over and over... and over and over... and over and over again... UGH.

Anyway, this song is my most recent ear worm. It's not even that catchy, it's just so... I HONESTLY DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS! I think it's because the melody is really soft but repetitive. And the melody's quite "pretty", too, if you know what I mean.

The Telegraph says that if you do something that's challenging enough (but not too challenging), it helps make ear worms go away. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/9950143/Get-that-tune-out-of-your-head-scientists-find-how-to-get-rid-of-earworms.html

Also, this study is collecting ear worm songs, which is pretty interesting. I think they're trying to study which ear worms get stuck and why. https://earwormery.wordpress.com I think that's pretty cool. :D

T2B31

“He pleaded with those sea-green eyes, like a cute baby seal that needed help. Piper wondered how Annabeth ever won an argument with this guy.” --Percy and Piper, The Mark of Athena

This is one of my favourite quotes from The Mark of Athena. Especially because it involves baby seals.

Although they don't have green eyes.

T2B30

I've actually wanted to make this origami box for a long time, but I never really had time.

This is the base:

I finally started making them today :) I'm very happy. They're actually really pretty.

T2B29

OMG I found this on Google+ and I was like SO TRUE, SO TRUE:

So basically, Riptide is this sword that Percy gets when he's 12, and it's disguised in the shape of a pen (so he can carry it everywhere, and he won't lose it becuase it also magically reappears in his pocket). It's not like a clicky-pen, it's one of those capped pens. When he takes off the cap, it turns into a sword. Nico actually asks Percy if it writes, and a lot of people ask, but he always says no, or he doesn't know (I forget which one). Then in The House of Hades, Annabeth asks Percy if he has a pen. He says, "Are you kidding?" and brings out Riptide, then Annabeth asks him, "Yes, but can you actually write with it?" Percy admits he's never tried, then Annabeth suggests he put the cap on the back of the pen, like if he were going to write with it (Percy usually just discards the cap when he fights, because it'll always reappear back in his pocket). AND OH MY GOODNESS: It writes!

That's the explanation behind this image.

That's why Annabeth is the smarter of the two.

T2B28

The nearest World Health Organization office is in Washington, DC.

:( I wish I'd realized this when we picked the charity to donate to for NPO. I really wanted to do the live presentation thing, but that's no longer possible.

Still, I had a lot of fun doing this project and I learned lots. I did a lot of the accounting, so now I'm better at that. I also practiced writing agendas and meeting minutes. I really liked the whole experience of selling, too. I prepped all the spare change, counted the money, and things like that. My mom knew more than I did--she reminded me to bring spare change in case people have big bills, and that was so smart. I didn't think of that at all, but we actually did get a $20 bill in about the first 20 minutes.

I understand the whole supply and demand process better now. We sold out of sugar cookies and almost out of regular cookies in the first day, so the first thing my mom and I did after school was buy more sugar cookies. The demand was higher than our supply, so we raised the supply. We had only 1 cookie left at the end of Day 2, so I asked my group members to buy more. Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication and we ended up with waaaay too many sugar cookies, which would last us the rest of the week. People started getting tired of baked goods in the 2nd week, so we made less money. OH ALSO, we found (sadly, on the last day) that if you walk around with a tray and approach cafeteria tables, people will buy your stuff. I think a lot of people didn't even bother to go to our table, but if you go up to them and ask, they'll buy. We sold pretty much the rest of our cookies this way, for 50¢ each (because of liquidation). Also, Mr. Olson's tip about presentation really helped. We made like a brownie tower for the 3rd day and they literally all sold out! The prettier things look (plus the tins made the food look homemade :P) the more people want to buy it, even though there's actually no effect on the taste or anything whatsoever. :)

I'm trying to keep accounting really neat right now, because getting the receipts was hard enough, now I don't want to mess any of it up. Total, we made about $134. That's a far cry from $1000, but I'm so glad we made progress and I worked so hard on this project, so I'm satisfied. (Although I would keep going if my group agreed... but they don't. :( ) Anyways, I'm proud to donate any money that we made to our charity because, as Sir Winston Churchill once said, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat." Except in our case, we won't offer blood and tears, because that's unhygienic and goes against our code of ethics. :P Also we'll take care not to let any of that drip into our food, because it's a. not FoodSafe and b. kind of yucky.

I had sooooo much fun doing this project. I would continue it, because I'm really into this kind of thing, but my group members don't want to, so... :(. But it's okay. I've been more aware of things like these charities, because I've learned more about them as we've gone along this project. This also makes me want to contribute more, and I'm sure I'll find ways to do so in the future.

T2B27

Okay, I finished my English story.

YAAAAAAAY!

It's almost 3000 words long, and it's really ramble-y. I DON'T KNOW I'm really bad at writing stories, I really have like no plot, and my story tends to be more tell than show. There are some places where I find this moment of brilliant inspiration! but it's not in a crucial part of the story. Which also reminds me of the fact that I tend to focus too much on the unimportant parts. I spent too much on the setting up/buildup of the main starting idea, rather than on how it affects the rest of the story. *sigh*

My story's basically about this girl, Annabella, who wants to be a writer. She has like this sad past or something, that I don't really go into detail about, because the only important thing is that she wants to go to a better future instead of staying in the past. Anyway, she's writing this novel she's working on, and she writes about her character, Christine. Oddly, Christine's life starts to be mirrored in hers. She then realizes that and takes advantage of it, creating her perfect life she wants. But one day, it all backfires. She asks for something (being a good writer) and it doesn't work. She's relying too much on the computer, and that one time it didn't work, she freaks out and spends all of her time trying to fix it (because then she tests more things and realizes that the computer has just totally broken down). Slowly, everything she created starts to fall apart, because she's withdrawing from them (like the EBA deposits from The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens! WHOAAAAA!) She goes back to her past, and rewrites her future, once again.

(The title of the story is Once Again. Ending with "once again" is supposed to make the reader go "OHHHHHH!" like that moment in a book when the title finally makes sense, but I don't think I did it very effectively, because there's pretty much no reference or foreshadowing to that at all. I cry :'( because of my terrible story-writing skills.)

It doesn't make very much sense. My plot's really scattered, it has too many rambley and unnecessary things when it should be more devoted to the point. *sighs* Here's something I can try to improve on.

Still, I really love that satisfied feeling when you write a good story, and there's a twist or something confusing or whatever, and  you watch people's faces when they go OHHHHHH MY GOODNEEEEEES and they get it! (And I'm just like, "OH YEAH!" *fist pump*)

I know I've posted it before, but this is such a perfect image to describe that feeling:

T2B26

I remember for the last English short story, I was all frustrated because I didn't have a good idea.

Then I read something that was soooo completely MINDBLOWING to me:

It's not about writing the right story. It's about writing the story right.

I have to remember this now--I'm editing and I'm seriously GA[SLDKFJ A;EORU[ WA;OESKLDFJ ;ADH.

Yes, that was my reaction. Yes, that made no sense. Yes, it's kind of how my story's going right now.

I'M GOING TO GO CRY IN A CORNER ABOUT IT NOW.

Writing the story right. Writing the story right. Writing the story right. 

I GOT THIS.

T2B25

OMG, I found this the other day and I was like OMG SO TRUE SO TRUE

T2B24

I love this quote from Son of Neptune:

“Hey!" said the guy in the video. "Greetings from your friends at Camp Half-Blood, et cetera. This is Leo. I'm the..." He looked off screen and yelled: "What's my title? Am I like admiral, or captain, or-"
A girl's voice yelled back, "Repair boy."
"Very funny, Piper," Leo grumbled. He turned back to the parchment screen. "So yeah, I'm...ah..supreme commander of the Argo II. Yeah, I like that! Anyway, we're gonna be sailing towards you in about, I dunno, an hour in this big mother warship. We'd appreciate it if you'd not, like, blow us out of the sky or anything. So okay! If you could tell the Romans that. See you soon. Yours in demigodishness, and all that. Peace out!” 

I was rereading it recently and I love this quote. I think it just shows Leo's personality so well.

T2B23

We're done selling for NPO!

I just realized how much effort and time I put into this. I'm trying to round about receipts right now and there's so much cost stuff that we have to figure out.

Anyway I'm so glad we're FINALLY out. We sold out pretty much on cookies, what we had left we just gave away to write off, because we can't sell it to anyone else. It took us so long to sell out the small cookies (we ended up giving away most of the shortbread). People don't like small things. We were sooooo happy when we sold out of brownies, and we didn't buy any more, because they were so hard to sell. We had to keep getting inventory of sugar cookies, regular cookies, and gingerbread men, though, because they sold out quickly. We were basically buying more boxes of sugar cookies each time we sold, and regular cookies too, because they look bigger and they're $1 so most people are willing to buy. We sold $34 in liquidation yesterday, which was awesome. :D A lot of people just buy 2 cookies when they hear it's 50¢ each, or half price, because they just give you a dollar and take 2 cookies. This is good :D

Now we pretty much have no inventory left. :D

Our supply has diminished! This is good news! We can sort out all of our accounting now! Yay!

T2B22

We just started debate in English!

I'M SO EXCITED

Margo and I are partners (because we're normally partners in debate club and tournaments and everything) and we're Opposition for this really hard motion:

This House believes that drones should be illegal in warfare.

I seriously don't know anything about drones, but all of the topics require research. We get winter break to do it too :)

I reeeeally love debate and I can't wait to start debating!

We're debating in CNDF, and I'm more used to that than anything else. I recently went to a World Schools Style debate where you debate in 3 person teams and the roles are a bit different, so that was really weird (or actually different might be a better word) for me. It might be a little bit harder to switch back to CNDF mode.

Oh also, I just realized that CNDF is adapted from World's Style. Margo was just like "THIS BLOWS MY MIND, IT'S LIKE A PLOT TWIST" because she thought it was the other way around. I thought it was kind of ironic too because most debates/styles have 2 person teams (that's the main difference between CNDF and Worlds) and yet CNDF is adapted from Worlds... whereas one would think Worlds was a variation of CNDF because it seems like CNDF would be the norm based on all the other styles of debate with 2 person teams.

Also, coincidentally, we were talking about POI's in debate club today, how and when to offer and accept. It was actually a lot more complicated than I expected, because last year I debated in Cross-Ex which doesn't have POI's, so it's a totally new concept for me. POI's are really important though, so that's something I really want to improve on.

This was me (and Margo) when we started debate today:

As you can see, I'm really excited for debate. :P

T2B21

We only sold $43.25 today. How is that possible?? How???

We really need to switch products, but it's kinda late for bubble tea. We'll probably sell/liquidate tomorrow as well. People might be getting tired of the same old, same old cookies, which is why they're not buying as much as before.

OOOH WE COULD GET MARGO TO SELL THEM AT HER APARTMENT :D or do the thing where you ask for donations and you get a cookie in return. That was pretty smart of the person who thought of doing that.

I don't know. We did okay last week... We could do something else. Are we allowed to do that? Like switch from a product to an event or something? We were thinking we could switch products but bubble tea negotiations didn't exactly go well. :( I think we could probably sell to other people outside of school too, that might help a little.

I think we'll probably just liquidate it all tomorrow and on Friday.

T2B20

I forget what the name of the poem is. Let me just search it up...

Oh. It's The Spell of the Yukon by Robert Service.

I think this relates to school. At the beginning, Service says he "threw his youth into a grave". I think that symbolizes people working too hard during school and not doing anything else. That represents an unbalanced life. I think the whole part where he talks about working really hard for it, then not really appreciating it, and then getting tired of it--that could represent school as well--like doing homework and things like that. Also, the one part where he says it wasn't the gold that motivated him, it was more the process of getting it--that struck me instantly as the process being more important than the result. A lot of teachers tell our Synergy class that we're too uptight on marks (the gold) rather than the process of getting there, of learning the concepts required to earn the gold.

I think that's a good reminder for all of us. Sometimes, you get to the end of a project and you're not sure what you learned, only that you got a good mark. If you didn't learn anything, that mark doesn't really symbolize anything. It's only important if you keep the learning.

Thanks for reminding us of that, Mr. Olson :)

T2B19

I'm so sad :'( We only made $48.80 today for the NPO.

I think it might be because we didn't have a lot of cookies to sell, and people thought they looked lonely all by themselves so they might have thought that they were leftovers, which might have made people not want to buy.

I DON'T KNOW THIS IS DRIVING ME CRAZY

We had a constant amount of money last week! $70-$80 per day last week, but only $50 today???

Erica thinks we might have a supply and demand problem.

I thought that we could sell bubble tea at the beginning of the project, but it seemed rather unrealistic. We thought that bubble tea might have a higher margin or at least sales amount per cup, so we tried to get the price of bubble tea down to 2.50, but then another guy talked to Erica's mom and the lowest he'd go was 2.75. And then she gave up trying to reason with him.

We could sell bubble tea if we go down to about 2.50 because if it was any more expensive, it'd barely cover gas fees. :( But we'll keep trying with other bubble tea places because I think bubble tea could sell really well.

T2B18

Christmas is almost here, and we're selling gingerbread men and brownies for NPO...

I found this recipe online and I reeeeally wanted to make it, but we don't have the time and ingredients to make these to sell :'(

http://www.getcreativejuice.com/2013/12/gingerbread-cookie-cups-white-chocolate-caramel.html

JUST LOOK AT THIS PHOTO



:O This makes me really hungry now. :P

T2B17

We just came back from a full day of debate.

I'M SO TIRED

We had 3 rounds today, in World Schools Style, and that's so... different than what I'm used to, it's weird. I think I'd do well in one part of one debate, and it would never just "come together" perfectly, it'd be in bits and pieces of perfection. *sighs* I think my debating skills overall improved, just not my World's Style. Because I'm still learning, and trust me... I have a loooong way to go. (which was just a nice way of saying I'm terrible.) I think we did okay, I think I personally did better (comparatively) here than the Regional debate, but then again, there were a lot less people/teams. I think the most important thing is to learn, though. We ended up debating with Tara, Frank, and Charlie because they were Norway (like we each got a country team name) and the last 3 rounds were bracketed which meant we could potentially end up debating one of our own teams. Mr. Hauck watched that last round so he could give us feedback (like all of us at the same time) and from that, we need to really do more signposting. Also, we got a lot of feedback from each of the individual judges, which was really helpful. I think that I learn more from tournaments than anything else, even though I always do so badly on them. :( But debate is something I really want to put a lot of effort into and learn well, especially with things like constructing solid arguments, dealing with POI's, and also structure. I think I'm a better speaker than before, but taking notes and using flowcharts is something that's reeeeeally important, because I'll do these things (actually everyone does :P) where I get up there, and I work up this really important and strong argument and then I'll just have to take a breath and pause--and then all of a sudden I lose what I was talking about. My sheets are messy, I can't read it from the table from where I'm standing, and I face this awkward situation where I'm either searching for the point or just thinking and staring blankly while trying to remember that brilliant argument I had.

The above is what Mr. Hauck would call "verbal diarrhoea" (thanks, autocorrect :P) because it's poorly organized and I bounced around a lot. That's also what he told us to correct. :P

Anyway... I think that I'm a more confident speaker than before. I'm trying to sound more passionate and really get into the heart of the debate, rather than just saying the points I have to say. I really like debate, and I think it's really useful. The other day, the science textbook had like an "Explore an Issue" lesson or something like that, and they had a mini chart of arguments, and they were like, "Expand", and I (almost instinctively) started analyzing it, going, Okay, this is why this is important, it's a moral point, how can we refute this... It was kind of funny, actually, and I "caught" myself doing that for a lot of arguments. I think debate helps me to be more analytical and really get into why an argument is effective and important, which also helps with critical thinking. It also makes me a more effective public speaker. I've seriously gotten so much practice public speaking (debate also adding an extra effect/layer of public speaking) that I'm pretty much no longer nervous at all about public speaking. Talking to a group is... well, to me, no different than talking to a friend, because I've gotten so much practice with it. Here's also a really good instance of where "practice makes perfect".

OHH--the other day in Leadership, we had to prepare 1 minute speeches and I had this reeeeeally good ending, but we skipped a week so I totally forgot the ending. And then afterwards I was flipping through my notes (on my phone) and then I realized THAT I'D FORGOTTEN THE ENDING that I'd literally built my whole speech on. (Literally. The ending was: "But in the end, there's no magic pill but the one called practice. Take every day for best results." I did a speech about public speaking (because it sounds cool :P) just so I could use the "practice" ending! And when I realized I'd forgotten, I was just like :OOOOOOOO.)

ANYway... I'm really tired now and yet I STILL HAVE SO MUCH HOMEWORK >.< Right now, I seriously can't wait for this time in 2 weeks... when I'll be blissfully ignorant and free... there's a reason they say "ignorance is bliss", you know. But I'll still work hard, because the mere thought of being free for 2 weeks is enough to make me work hard. ;P

T2B16

We just had a debate tournament.

It was...

okay...?

The main reason I'm kind of disappointed is because I don't think we performed to our greatest potential, but I guess that's to be expected since this is the first time we've worked together as a team.

It's rather late so I'll post more details tomorrow.

T2B15

People don't like cute things.

Okay, so that's not necessarily true, but here's what I mean: I've noticed that small things don't sell. People buy these giant cookies and regular sized sugar cookies, and these mini cookies that are 3 for a dollar just don't move. We're selling brownies and mini cinnamon buns for 50¢ and we literally sold, like, 3 cinnamon buns yesterday. 3. Like, are you kidding me? We sold 3 on the first day and I bought one of them! Of course, that's because they were like 75¢ each on the first day, but we lowered the price and still nobody buys them. :( I'm going to try out these chocolate cookies, but if they don't sell I'm liquidating them to myself, because, personally, I love them, and I want to save our company some money and have a faster turnover time. :D

T2B14

OMG I'M SO EXCITED

We made about $78 today! That's about $5 more than we made on Monday. But also, it mean's we're selling at a steady pace, which is good. :D We might have sold more if the group beside us weren't also selling cupcakes today... homemade cupcakes... for a dollar cheaper... *sighs, headdesks table* But it's okay, I have 2 cupcakes left and I'm putting them in the fridge tonight, I'll bring them for Friday to continue selling. We're stocking up on our inventory (like the more popular food) so we can keep selling making money :P and we're trying to sell some more of the less popular items.

But that's not what I'm excited about.

So you know my mom's an accountant right? She said she could help me set up Simply Accounting today so we can create like a legit accounting... er, account :P for our NPO! She uses Simply Accounting at work, and she said she could install it on my computer so we could both enter our inventory, how much we sold things for, etc. and that way the computer can calculate it all (like the profit and everything per cookie) and that just makes life soooo much easier, because I'd be doing it by hand anyways. Erica and I are kind of sharing the job of CFO, I did the 1st day sales, but because my WiFi died on me today (I don't even know what happened, but I literally loaded a page for an entire afternoon and it still didn't load! But my dad fixed it for me when he came home and now I'm using a different network, because the old one is still dead. :'( ) I couldn't do Sales Day 2 spreadsheet so Erica and I are going to finish it tomorrow--I have to talk to her about 2 column accounting and we'll do the spreadsheet together. :D

Mr. Hauck wasn't here yesterday and today :( so I'm still kinda confused about the Dossier, but I asked Margo and she clarified some things for me. We have an in class essay on Friday that I'm really nervous about, because it's a new type of essay, but I've brainstormed some topics and things, and I think I should be able to do it. I don't know if it's open-book, because I was going to prepare an outline, but it probably won't be. I also don't know if Mr. Hauck's going to give us a specific topic day of, or just the general compare/contrast one.

OOH--I'm also really excited for the debate unit we have next. Mr. Hauck said we're going to start a little debate unit next week or week after, I think, and I was like OMG <3 because I really like debate and I've been trying to improve.

I kinda thought about the science game a little, and I'm not sure we have time to do a video game. I reeeeeally wanted to, but I realized that we only have 2 weeks to do this thing, and I don't have a lot of time, and I don't want to cram. I think Erica is totally right in that we actually don't have a lot of time, because we have to balance a lot of other work as well.

Anyway, this blog was really scattered and random... I promise I'll be more focused tomorrow.

T2B10, 11, 12, 13

Yeah, I totally forgot to blog for like the last 3 days. I'm sorry. There's just so much on my plate.

I have like 5 bajillion things to say, so instead of trying to separate it into 4 blogs, I'm just going to spew it all out in one big long rant (I'm sorry if you have to try to read this. :( It's going to be long. Like, looooooooong.)

Anyways, I'm so stressed right now.

Okay so on Sunday, I went and bought a whole bunch of stuff for NPO. I met Margo at the Oakridge Safeway rather coincidentally, we just happened to be buying food in the same place at the same time. I bought some cupcakes at the IGA near my house, and I also bought a giant gingerbread man and some mini cookies at Safeway, while Margo bought 2 different types of sugar cookies and another giant gingerbread man. So, that was all well and fine... Margo and I bought less because Erica bought more, so we wanted to even out the amount of food we bought so we could sell them while they were still fresh. (OBTW, I WAS SO HAPPY WHEN WE GOT SNOW ON SATURDAY I WAS JUST LIKE :D :D :D <3 <3 and the only reason I mention this is because we were going to bake on Friday and Margo reminded us all that there might be snow on Friday and to be careful if we were driving/bussing/walking. Something totally unrelated: there wasn't snow on Friday so I didn't think there'd be snow at all, but my mom woke me up with "Snow outside!" on Saturday, and I didn't believe her, because my family has this thing where they take turns trying to get me up by telling me there's snow. :P)

So then, we started selling on Monday, and I'd originally had high expectations, but with the constant "I don't think we're going to make any money" vibe coming off of Margo and Erica, I was starting to get a bit depressed and start thinking that way. (We were talking about stress in Leadership the other day, and we were talking about how other people's stress can affect you. BOOM: perfect example. Also, that day I hadn't been feeling stressed until we started talking about our stresses and how we could deal with them.) Well, GUESS WHAT, we made $73.75 revenue! On the first day! I literally said to Margo afterschool after Debate meeting, "I can't wait to go home and count the money," because we had SOOO much cash and I was like *YES. YES. YES.* So then I was so excited I went home and I pretty much spent the entire afternoon calculating our sales, profits, products sold, and how to reinvest. In total our cash right now is 103.75, which means we made 3.75 profit and 100 to give back to our shareholders. But hey. It's a start.

I'm kinda stressed for NPO now, not because it's hard, but because there's a lot of things to do. My mom's an accountant, so she can help me with some of the accounting stuff, because Erica's kind of scared of accounting. But I feel so tired now, because I feel like I'm running a one-man (one-woman) business. I did the first few meeting minutes, I made the agendas, and I'm keeping track of the money and doing the accounting right now. I bought all of our new inventory for tomorrow's bake sale because Margo and Erica didn't have time. Erica and Margaret and their parents have been really helpful, with driving, making the angel food cake, buying food, and selling with me, but I feel like I'm taking on a lot of responsibility. And I like that, because I'm learning, but sometimes I feel like it's getting to be a little too much, and I have other homework to do too. For example, the science. (Well, and English but I'll get to that later).

For the science game project, Erica and Margaret and I (yes, it's the 3 of us again :P) are doing "The Great Sperm Race Game". (We're studying Life Science in science right now.) I really wanted to do an interactive video game, but really, only Erica knows programming well, I only know a little bit, and Margo doesn't know any at all. I really wanted to take this project farther, because I believe in doing my best and doing more than is required, so I can learn better. Erica pointed out, however, that it's very difficult to program if you don't know how to program (well), and she already had a lot of responsibilities on her hands. I was like, Well, I can learn in a weekend or so if I do just programming, because I'm a fast learner, and I believe I can do it. Erica says it takes years for a programmer to get good, and also to write a decent program, so then we said we should borrow from someone else. We asked Mr. Mo and he said it's fine, as long as it's all open-source and we cite the programmer. I think the science game is a big task, but I'm up to it, and I'm feeling a little bit tired and discouraged, because I want to do a really good job on this, but my group thinks it'll be too difficult. I'm willing to put in the effort, and I'm not asking anyone to do all the work, I'm willing to do my fair share, but my group thinks it's just impossible. I realize that and I'm respecting it, but I really want to put effort into this thing. Just like with NPO, I think we could do a really good job of this if we're only willing to put in extra time and effort. Going back to NPO, I really want to do a good job, learn something, and raise money for the WHO, which is why I'm putting so much effort into it. I want to do likewise for science. But I think the reality might be that we're just out of time--Margo, Erica and I have so many other things on our plate.

*Side note: I remember when Erica told me once, she heard someone in her class asking someone else (let's call them John and Tim) why they created a circle for an electronics class (I think the choice was to carve a circle or a figure). Tim replied, "'Cause it's easy." Then John said to Tim, "Yeah, but when we're in Grade 12, I'll look back on this and say, 'Wow, I did a really good Pokemon,' and you're going to look back on this and say, 'Wow, I did a really good circle.'" I just about died laughing there, because it was #LOLSOTRUE. (at least for me) My philosophy of learning is that you don't take the easy path, the easy way out, the minimum requirements, you do as much as you can and more than the requirements because it helps you learn. There's a reason we're in school, and that reason is to learn. Personally, I learn because I'm hoping to contribute something to the world. To me, giving back is one of the the most important things one can do in life, and I'm hoping to do just that, which is why my learning philosophy is to always do your best.

We have literally 3 projects ongoing for English right now. We have a compare/contrast essay on Friday, and I'm kind of worried for that because I've never written a compare/contrast essay before. The ones I've done are all persuasive. Then again, we have the dossier, due next Tuesday, which I've barely started yet, because I wasn't there for the "debriefing" (I was at a piano competition) and I have a few questions to clear up. We also have the AS/English Crossover story, which I'm working on right  now. I have this really awesome idea about this girl and her computer controlling her future, but no spoilers now! I've been spending so much time on NPO recently because I looove it (I <3 doing this business stuff :D) and I have to start moving on these projects, because I don't have Friday and Saturday.

*sighs* I'm kinda getting really stressed out now, but I'll be okay. (Actually, one of my best ways to work through these "crunch times" is to spend 5 minutes dreaming about how I'll feel like in 2 weeks when it's winter break and there's nothing to do for an entire half a month... Then I snap back to reality and work my butt off so the dream is more than a dream. :D)

SO EXCITED FOR BAKE SALE TOMORROW :D

T2B9 (because I had to add 3 from Term 1 to Term 2)

D': I'M GOING TO CRY NOW

I found this Mark of Athena trailer on the Percy Jackson Google+ community, and I realized that they didn't make a Titan's Curse movie! So I went and searched it up, and THEY WON'T MAKE ONE D':

This makes me so sad I can't even communicate it in crying emotes. 

I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY'RE NOT MAKING A THIRD MOVIE

Apparently it's because the first movie did really bad, and the second movie improved, but not by much. So they don't want to make a 3rd movie. I don't think it's "official" yet but Logan Lerman (the actor who plays Percy Jackson) said it's not coming out. I think the article was published in March or something but I didn't hear it until now... AND NOW I'M SAD D':

I don't know if it's because the movies aren't realistic enough or if people just don't like Percy Jackson.

I will be so sad if the latter is true.

Anyway, I found this today (I'm kind of on a Percy Jackson roll here :P) and it's so funny. It's kinda blurry though. (they're puns for each demigod's power)

T2B5 (+3 from last term so next blog is T2B9)

*sighs* We just finished 5 hours of discussion over chat for the NPO and we ended up at exactly where we were 2 weeks ago.

It's like this: We've been trying to figure out what our materials are, how much they cost, and how much money we can make. We said, let's buy all the ingredients, since, you know, there aren't a lot, and we can buy it in small amounts. We decided to buy it all from Walmart, so Erica and I calculated the costs on Friday. Then we found the total ingredients for 1 batch of sugar cookies and 1 batch of chocolate crinkles and 1 batch of royal icing (like all put together) and we got.. well, this long list of ingredients. Anyway, I calculated how much for 6 batches, and how much it would cost for ingredients for 6 batches rounded up to the nearest pack. We spent aaaaallll this time doing the calculation and stuff, including making baking plans for tomorrow (Friday) and then at the end, I realized that I couldn't bake tomorrow because I had a piano lesson and I had to practice. Well, one thing led to another, and then the next thing I knew, we weren't going to bake at all but we were going to each buy our own pre-baked goods to resell on Monday.

*sigh* This means we wasted 5 hours discussing something, and ending up exactly where we started. I suggested we resell instead of bake ourselves, like 2 weeks ago, at the beginning of this, and we spend so much time and energy, but went back to this idea.

Well, as Margo says, "life's like this sometimes," we just gotta roll with it. It's okay as long as we raise $1000 for our charity, because that's the most important part. I think the learning outcome of this is, in part, learning how to cooperate with people, among developing a successful non-profit organization, because people skills are important.

That means I'm learning. Me learning = good. :D (for me :P)

T2B4

I <3. It's one of my favourites. It's so Annabeth-y and Percy-y. (Percy-y? that didn't sound right... Perc-y. :D)

T2B3

I have a math test tomorrow, a spanish test, and a socials project.

Times like this, I really wish I had a time stopper, so I could just pause the world and study.

Anyway, I realized a few days ago that there are so many sugar cookie recipes. Most of them are some sort of variation of the Martha Stewart recipe: http://www.marthastewart.com/338471/basic-sugar-cookies

Little more flour, little less sugar... there's really just a little bit of variation, not really different recipes.

Thank goodness the ingredients are the same, so we don't have to decide on a recipe right now. We can probably test a few recipes to see which is the best, because they're probably all a little bit different. Maybe some people like sweeter cookies, whilst others like a less sweet cookie, then maybe some recipes are sweeter and some are less sweet.

T2B2

I found this cookie cutter set on Amazon, and I'm thinking we should buy something like this for our bake sales: http://www.amazon.ca/Wilton-Mini-Cookie-Cutter-set/dp/B000W4SM4K/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1416891074&sr=8-5&keywords=cookie+cutters+christmas

Only problem with that is, they're too small to sell as individual cookies for $1, and then if we sell 2 for $1, then the cost will be higher, and agh... this confuses me. I think it might just be easier to buy a bunch of cupcakes/cookies for cheap and resell them, because then our numbers are consistent and we won't have random amounts of ingredients left over.

I really like the idea of decorating our own cookies, though...

I think a good recipe for success (recipe--get it? :P Okay, moving on.) is to make our own sugar cookies, because they're easy, call for less ingredients, fast, tasty, and we can decorate them to look like whatever we want. Christmas cookies, emoji cookies. Movie cookies, book cookies. Modern cookies, old cookies. The possibilities are endless! It's also really easy to make royal icing--Icing Sugar + Egg whites = royal icing. Plus, royal icing can be made to look like any colour (because it's almost pure white). Anyway, there's also baking mixes pre made if we want to use that, which also makes things easier.

I think we'll buy cupcakes, because they're a lot harder to make, but they taste so yummy and they're really popular. There's this one brand I really like for baked goods, two bite, and they make mini versions of everything. They. Are. So. Good. Also, they're really pretty, so I think we'll sell some of those as well. (I think they'll be pretty popular.)

So excited to start selling and baking! :D

T2B1

I have been ingesting too much debate-related stuff.

Seriously, in our science textbook, there's this one lesson where they talk about the controversy of cloning animals (organisms might be a better word here?). They had a list of Points and Counterpoints, and almost instinctively I started analyzing them, thinking about which category of points this falls under (because Mr. Hauck (who's our debate coach) told us about 5 categories of arguments: Social, Political, Economical, Religious (or cultural), and Moral/Military), why a point might be invalid, possible refutations... you get the idea. I kind of caught myself doing that while I was reading that part, and I almost laughed (out loud... in the midst of a group of quiet working people... awk-ward...). But I guess it's good, because Mr. Mo's always telling us that science is more about debate than the facts, because science is always changing.

Kind of on a tangent here... I plan to work really hard on debate this year because I did so epically bad in the UBC Regional Tournament, and I really want to get better for next year. :) I also found this awesome book in the school library about speeches and debate--It's called "Talk the Talk". I know. I just fell in love with the name. <3 It's a pretty good book, though--it covers pretty much all of the most important parts of debate and speeches and includes an analyzation of some example debates. :D

T1B58

Totoro + Macarons = LOVE <3

I wish we could make these for our bake sale but macarons are really hard to perfect and I don't really want to spend time perfecting them because we may end up not being able to sell the earlier batches. If I baked on my own I would definitely try these (sadly, I have no idea how to bake).

I think we could make these though:

We plan to make a lot of sugar cookies for our bake sale because they're tasty, and they're pretty. We could change the decoration and shape and it's like POW! They're different just because of the frosting!

Also, they're really easy to make. :P

T1B57

I reeeeeally want to make these for our bake sale but it'll take soooo long:

I watched this and I was like SO CUTE...

T1B56

I've been watching a lot of baking videos for the NPO because we want to sell cookies and cupcakes and baked goods. I found this one on "Nerdy Nummies" (no idea what that's supposed to mean :S) but it's full of these really awesome baked things. Ro, who's the person who bakes, makes all of these treats and she decorates them to look like pop culture items.

She made a Frozen princess cake and I was like :O *GAAAAASP* MY DREAM HAS COME TRUE :D

T1B55

This is just so... OMG. *cuteness overload*

http://graphicdesignjunction.com/2012/10/55-cute-cartoon-illustrations-by-fruitycuties/

T1B54

I had 3 quizzes today.

I'm so glad Mr. Mo pushed our Science Quest (quiz/test) to Thursday (actually Monday now)! I had a Spanish numbers quiz (pretty easy), a Math Measurement quiz (okay), and a Socials First Nations quiz (also okay).

2 things:

1. I actually differentiate between quizzes and tests now! Before, in elementary, we didn't really have quizzes (because I went to MACC, most of it was projects and autonomous learning) so there wasn't really a difference between tests and quizzes for me. We only had math tests, and we learned math at our own pace.

2. I know how to use smart test-taking strategies. A lot of times, I wouldn't really think about the test taking strategies, because I often would be able to recite the material to you, off the top of my head. But this week, I have less time because of piano competitions, so I have to use my time more wisely (because a lot more time is dedicated to practicing). People always say, study smarter, not harder, but I never really had to do that, so I'd study smart and still have time to study hard. I learned that all you really need are associations (it'd be awesome if I could actually associate everything with their groups, but sometimes they get confused--like I almost confused the people of the Plains and the Plateau, because, you know, they're close on a map and they both start with the letter P. :P). For example, if you know that Plains people had bison drives, and bison drives are associated with tipis, then you can just automatically make the assumption that Plains people lived in tipis. I find that now, on tests, questions will be related (especially on multiple choice quizzes)--for example, what people group eats pemmican? (ancient trail mix made of bison, lard, and dried berries) then I know: Plains. What people group live in tipis? Well, pemmican = made of bison = bison hunt = tipis = Plains, so: Plains. This has really helped me, and this also makes smarter studying and remembering info permanently, because I think the most important part of learning is that you keep the skills/knowledge that you will need later in life, not just the mark you get on the next test.

T1B53

Frank held out the vial of Pylosian mint. ‘Don’t break it.’

Leo nodded gravely. ‘Don’t break the vial of deadly poison. Man, I’m glad you said that. Never would have occurred to me.’

This is one of my favourite quotes from the entire book (The Blood of Olympus). I feel like it just shows Frank's and Leo's personality so well.

T1B52

I posted a riddle for T1B48.

I think it's that one philosopher realizes that if his nose wasn't red, then the 2nd philosopher would see him laughing and the 3rd philosopher laughing, and realize that if his nose wasn't red then the third philosopher would have nothing to laugh at.

That's kinda confusing.

The riddle's here:

Three philosophers are taking a nap under a tree. While they’re asleep, a small boy smears their noses with red berries. When they awake, they each begin to laugh, thinking the other two are laughing at each other.

But then one philosopher stops laughing, realizing his nose is red too. How did he come to this conclusion?

T1B51

OMG I GOT MY MATH TEST BACK YESTERDAY

AND I WAS LIKE :O

I screwed up on this one question so dumbly (is that even a word?) that I just wanted to headdesk the... well, desk.

The questions was

-y^15

y^11

The rule is that if you divide powers, you subtract the exponents, right? The negative sign can go out because it's the same thing as multiplying (I almost said timesing) by -1. Therefore the answer should be -y^4, right? Because - y^15-11 = -y^4. So Ms. Choo, on her quizzes and tests, she always gives us the question, some place to work, and the answer line. I wrote -y^4 on the work space, and I dropped the negative sign in the answer!!! It was like, I GOT the right answer and I just copied it wrong!

And I was like

Such a stupid mistake... *facepalm facepalm facepalm*

T1B50

I made a whole bunch of quotes from The Blood of Olympus because I want to collage my water bottle, but I've got the dimensions wrong and it's not working. :( But I still like seeing the quotes on shiny pictures :P

This is one of my favourites. :)

T1B49

I found this awesome quote generator site: behappy.me

I'm not sure why the address is a .me, but I guess it makes sense: be happy => to me :)

Anyways, I got totally obsessed. Here's one I created with one of Winston Churchill's quotes:

Here's another one:

I'm going to print these out and put them on my wall. :)

T1B48

Three philosophers are taking a nap under a tree. While they’re asleep, a small boy smears their noses with red berries. When they awake, they each begin to laugh, thinking the other two are laughing at each other.

But then one philosopher stops laughing, realizing his nose is red too. How did he come to this conclusion?

I don't know. It kind of confuses me.

T1B47

Lest we forget. 

T1B46

The debate tournament was awesome. I'm not going to ramble on too much here, but something that really hit me was the junior finals. The top 2 teams debate against each other, and I think that determines the first and second teams.

O. M. G. They were so good! I noticed that they were clear, but not blunt. Does that make sense?

You know how in speeches, you're supposed to start with a hook and "reel" your listeners in? If it's a boring speech, no one wants to listen.

In debate, however, I'd always thought you had to be crystal clear and present only your arguments. I thought you were only supposed to start out with "Good morning, honourable judges, moderator, timekeeper, and Mr./Mrs. Speakers. The proposition that stands before us today..." so on and so forth. The package that they gave us for the Juniors, showing you how to debate in CNDF, said that you could also start with an interesting hook or idea, but I thought that that might not be as clear or recommended. On the junior finals, however, I noticed that both teams and all 4 speakers began with a little hook to capture the audience's attention. That was really effective, and I learned something that day :)

I'd always thought of speeches and debates as separate things, but I guess they're not really so. I read somewhere that you could be the world's greatest speaker, and still lose a debate. The point of debate is to clash with the other team's points and tell the judge why your points still stand after being rebutted and disassembled by the other team, and you also have to say why the other team's points are not as strong as yours or are invalid.

(On a side note here, I realized recently that the concept and preparation of debate, if it's a prepared debate, seems simple. Create arguments, say arguments, refute arguments. But it's not actually easy--you have to do about a bajillion things at the same time--write down other team's points, listen to them, refute them, build up your own arguments, and then wrap it all up with why you won. *sighs* This is what they mean when they say "practice makes perfect".)

Anyway, I hadn't thought of this before, but in the junior finals, I realized that what made the debaters so good was how they presented. I think that I'd gotten much better in debate since last year, but after going to this tournament, I realize just how much I still have to improve. (In case you were wondering: A lot.) I noticed that the speakers kept their definitions/model short and sweet, and simple. I mean, it's instinct for a lot of us to come up with the most comprehensive, wordy lengthy definition possible, but the general rule is that if some random person on the street walked into your debate room, they would agree with the definitions. You can't make it impossible for opposition to win if you, as proposition, are responsible for definitions.

1. They were clear. Like, really, really clear. But not stupidly clear.

Let me elaborate.

The debaters were clear in their definitions: defining this house, and certain terms necessary to clarify a debate. Some terms I wouldn't have thought to define, but were important. Other terms I would have defined, but may have been unnecessary.

**I forgot to say the teams and resolution! The resolution was: This house believes that all internet users have a Right to be Forgotten. Right to be Forgotten (they had an info slide) meant the right to have irrelevant, outdated, or no longer relevant information removed from search engines. The teams were Proposition from Crofton House team 1, and Opposition was Port Moody team 1.**

Anyway, their definitions were clear. They then moved on to the arguments, and that was what really struck me.

2. Their arguments were solid, and made logical sense.

What do I mean? I mean that normally, what I would do would be to just launch into my argument. I wouldn't explain the premise behind it or lead the audience to what led me to that argument (sorry, that was kind of confusing). What all 4 speakers did was lead the audience to the conclusion. Their first argument was the infringement of privacy. Basically, they were saying that users have a right to privacy and have their photos, posts, etc. removed. I would have just left it there and maybe followed up with an example. But what they did was just so... like WOW. The 1st prop speaker started with the statement of the argument, and then said this: Why would one want their photos/posts/whatever removed from the internet? They started with a why, and that just made things so much easier to follow. By saying why, they led us to the conclusion that: Oh, it's not important anymore. If it's not important anymore, then it should be removed because if it was something bad, it's not necessarily indicating the person involved is bad. OMG! All of a sudden, this argument just became so much stronger. It was like, Yeah, they should be allowed to remove it because it's not relevant. It was just... WOW.

3. Their refutation/clash was awesome.

I noticed that their refutation was strong as well, because it was based on logic. I think one main problem with Margaret and my refutation of our opponents' arguments was that it was mainly based on examples. We would say something like, "that example doesn't work because it's not common", but that's a bad refutation. You never debate about the arguments or definitions in a debate, and you don't take it out of context. I think Margaret and I as a team, really have to work on refutation. Also, another thing was that both prop and opp teams were clear in their refutation, but their style was good. Mostly, the teams that Margaret and I debated against said things like, "That argument is invalid." That's accepted, because you're not insulting the other team, but it's better to say something like, "We don't see how that argument applies," because then your judges are like, "Oh, yeah, she's right, she doesn't see how it applies," and that causes them to think about it more too. If you just tell someone, that argument is invalid, it's not as powerful as if you invoke your own thinking processes.

4. Their reply speeches.

I think that by the end, they'd done most of their refutation within the speeches so both teams didn't really have to go too in-depth during their reply speeches (3 minute summary speeches, basically). That way, they just summed up their own speeches, and this is really important: they summarized what the debate came down to. This is something everyone tells you to do, but that most people don't do well (because I think it's more sophisticated). I think Margaret and I really have to work on those reply speeches, because the teams we faced mostly did refutation, so we did that, but that wasn't very effective. When you say what the debate came down to, you can point out why your arguments are fundamentally right in light of this debate (like the finals came down to basic human rights and which ones are more important). This way, you can prove that your arguments right, and this debate goes down to a deeper level.

5. Some smaller details.

I noticed (and Margaret did too) that all 4 speakers ended and began their speeches with "That is why we are so proud to propose ... (and then the proposition)." I think that is most likely just more sophisticated details in debate, but I thought that was pretty effective and I think I'll try that in the future. I also noticed that some of the teams we faced as well as both finalist teams used the word "contentions" in place of "arguments". This just sounds more sophisticated--I have to stop using sophisticated!!--seasoned, or practiced (yeah, see, there we go). And it sounds less aggressive. We were thinking about this as well (Margaret and I) because we realized that we weren't having enough clash in our debates (a fancy word for arguing/refuting) and that we'd forgotten to refute some of our oppositions points.

I learned a lot during this debate tournament, and I had so much fun. We got the tabs (like the scores) for each debater yesterday (me = 132/180 debates :'( ), and although I'm a little disappointed, this means there's always more room for improvement! :) I mean, this blog post is, what... like 1500 words and this is only the finals. We had 5 other debate rounds, 4 prepared, 1 impromptu... imagine how many words that is :O. Anyway, I really enjoyed this experience and I'll definitely do it again next year. Mr. Hauck emailed us and told us that UBC wants to host another debate in March, and I really want to go to that one as well.

Like, seriously. After seeing that one last, intense (it was really intense) final debate, I'm motivated to work harder than ever. I really like debate, and I realize that it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive from speeches (I learned the phrase mutually exclusive during English... I think?) and that debating can help me improve my speech skills as well. We're also doing this speech thing in one of my extracurriculars, and it's pretty fun and applicable as well.

Actually what this all boils down to is me liking to talk. :P I'm super inspired to do more and practice more debate, speeches, everything, and I hope to be a better debater in future.

Oh yeah, Margaret told me the same thing after we watched the junior finals, that she was suddenly inspired to debate after watching them. :P I felt the same way.

T1B45

Here's the answer to T1B43:

SPOILER ALERT

Yes, an older $100 dollar bill is worth more than a newer $1.

That seriously got me so bad. I was going to say yes, because the older bill, if it's really old, can be sold for more money (because people like antique things :P) but I never expected the newer "one" dollar bill thing.

T1B44

OMG Margaret and I finished the UBC Regional Debate Tournament today, and I'm sooooo tired.

I got home at like 9:30 today, and like 10:30 yesterday.

Yeah I'm so tired I don't really want to talk about debate today... I'll post a longer post maybe tomorrow or day after.

T1B43

This was the first riddle that showed up on the site I went to (the riddle of the day, I think) but it's so genius, I was just totally fooled.

Is an older one-hundred dollar bill worth more than a newer one?

T1B42

OMG, we're reading this book called I Am the Cheese in English, and it's soooooo confusing.

We had a class discussion two days ago where we came up with a whole bunch of conspiracy theories (because we're Synergy XP) and we all had different thoughts and connections. Sometimes, everyone would agree on one thing because, I suppose it's culture that affects our opinions, but other times, one person would make this one connection and everyone would gasp because it's like this totally, WHOA, never-thought-about-that-before connection.

Anyway, I read another one of Robert Cormier's books ages ago (I actually totally forgot that it was him who was the author, but the inside of the book listed his other books) and that was The Chocolate  War. In MACC, we do these things called booktalks, which is basically where you read a book, and then connect it to whatever project you're doing, or just because we talk about the book and get more in-depth with it. If we're just writing a classic review, we connect it to other things in our life, but with booktalks, it's a lengthier presentation and we usually try to get the audience involved so we start discussing things in the book, what they could mean, how this connects to real life, things like that. I did a group booktalk with these other 2 people, Lukas and Daniel, and I actually picked The Chocolate War because it sounded so innocent, you know, like maybe similar to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or something like that. And then I read it over the summer, and it took me SO long, I literally would spend like an hour reading each chapter, because firstly, there were a bajillion words I didn't know (this was back in like Grade 5/6) and also, the meanings were really deep and rather confusing. It was about this guy named J-something (like James or John or something) and a school's annual chocolate sale. Sounds okay, right? Then you get deeper into the book and find out about this gang who police the chocolate sale, it's like a really cool thing or whatever, and then they start bullying John (James?). It gets really dark. ... So, as you can see, I didn't really start reading I Am the Cheese with a really hopeful, positive outlook with regards to the ending.

I also didn't expect it to be easy. *sighs* But it's actually really interesting so far, and I feel like the plot could go 4 different ways, there are so many clues and red herrings and things like that. Mr. Hauck mentioned in class last day that it was almost like a mystery, because we don't know what's going on with Adam (the protagonist) and really, I'm just confused.

I think that it's good that this book is so complicated, though, because there's just so much to talk about, especially in class discussions. *Also, our class freaked out when Mr. Hauck told us he had questions about the first part, because we all (well, me at least) thought it was a quiz. Turns out it was just... well, questions to get our brain going for the discussion afterward. Sometimes I'm probably way too paranoid. :P