T2B99

OMG FOR NPO WHY DON'T WE JUST DONATE TO THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL????

They're close, they're relevant, and it's a really good cause.

Yes, let's donate to the Children's Hospital.

T2B98

Taylor Swift's "Style" is out now! :D I've been waiting for this song, I think it's one of her better ones.

The video's very serious and sad. (I think it's a little creepy, but then again I think a lot of things are creepy. So. You know.)

This is kind of contrasting to the way Target uses this song. They used the "And I got that red lip classic thing that you like" and set it to an upbeat commercial.

In this video, the whole scene is vibrant, yes, but not in the happy, uplifting way Target's commercial is.

Mr. Lattimer was talking about how directors use music to affect your viewing of pictures. An author uses words, a director uses sound.

This video kind of makes me thing about the opposite. The images set to a song can affect the way the song is perceived. I suppose this is slightly different--in a film, the background music (usually) doesn't have words, and affects the scene because of its subtlety--it's almost unconsciously affecting the way you perceive the scene and the words in the scene. In this case, it's the song with the text, the meaning of the lyrics, that is affected by the visuals. The visuals aren't the main focus, in this case, instead, they enhance the song and add a level of depth to it, the same way background music works for films. I think, in this case, the music itself (in the song, so not the lyrics) is the focus, which is why the visuals add to it. 

This also kind of leads me to the different types of music videos I've noticed. I'd say there are 2 main types.

The kind where there is a story, i.e. You Belong With Me, also by Taylor Swift:

And the abstract kind (Style ^).

I think the ones that tell a story usually tell the story behind the song, if there is one, or one that is related somehow to the theme/subject of the song. There, a storyline develops in the video as well as the lyrics. The second, abstract kind, simply explores different fragments of the same topic. I'd say even the abstract kinds have a bit of a storyline to them, as they explore the same topic and are consistent, i.e. Style (it kind of follows a relationship? I don't really know about this one) or This Is How We Do, Katy Perry. (In the case of This Is How We Do, the entire song is just one topic and doesn't really evolve.)

Anyways, I think it's all very interesting and subjective (See what I did there? XP).

Music is an art, and music videos bring the joy of it to everyone. It's all a matter of perception, but I think it's very interesting how directors and (what do you call the people that film music videos? producers? or still directors?) producers, I guess, play with your senses to clue you in, in many different ways, about the stories.

After all, as we're learning in English, stories are a great way to learn. :D (I'll blog about that tomorrow. XP)

T2B97

AAHHHH these past few days I basically had no time for homework because I had debate meetings until like 5.

AND NOW I HAVE A PILE OF HOMEWORK, SOME THAT I FORGOT ABOUT, AND SOME THAT I'M PANICKING ABOUT NOW BECAUSE I DIDN'T KNOW WE HAD THEM.

MAUS I ESSAY? UH-OH. BEE INQUIRY? OH GODS NO. NPO? I TOTALLY FORGOT *CRY CRY CRY*. CEMC CS APPLICATION? SCREW THAT I NEED TEACHER RECOMMENDATION AND IT'S DUE TOMORROW.

AAAAGHHHHH SO MUCH STRESS D'X

T2B96

Guys. Is Crash Course not the best thing ever?

This is soooo awesome (because we're doing French Revolution in Science right now). Crash Course actually teaches a lot of cool stuff, sometimes that we use in class, and sometimes that I use for extra info or interest. :D

T2B95

HOORAAAAAYYYY, HOORAY FOR BEING ABLE TO SWITCH CHARITIES.

NPO kinda snuck up on us, we've been emailing the people nonstop (literally, like we sent them 20 emails) and THEY WON'T LISTEN. We've been bothering them incessantly (maybe that's why they ignore us XP) and we haven't gotten a single email back. Erica wondered, and I quote, "maybe their spam filters are catching the email before it gets to their faces". True. Their spam filters probably catch all sorts of email that aren't strictly related to their business, like feedback, donations, etc. (although we ARE giving them money, in fact we're nearly shouting "TAKE OUR MONEY!").

So we asked Mr. Olson and have agreed to go with what he has allowed us to do: switch charities.

I thought we weren't allowed to switch charities, plus it feels like it has been false advertising all along, (like "Donate to the World Health Organization!" and then like "OH wait srry lol we're changing charites. XP". In fact, I distinctly remember having a conversation with a girl who said her grandfather used to be the president of the WHO. :( And this makes me feel that much worse about unwittingly having lied to her back then. D':)

But this money has to go there, and really as long as it's helping people, does it matter how it gets there?

Anyways, kind of panicking because of the tight deadline. But IT'S NOT OUR FAULT THE WHO PEOPLE CHOSE TO IGNORE US D': as you can tell, I'm kinda sad.

We should have just started out with a local charity so we can actually visit them and everything.

T2B94

O. M. G. IF I COULD HAVE THESE (and had pierced ears) I WOULD JUST LIKE OMG.

THEY'RE LIKE LEGIT FUNCTIONAL BOOKS MADE INTO EARRINGS OMG OMG OMG!!

I've always wondered how an origami modular book might actually be useful, and now I guess for things like this :)

T2B93

This is so true.

Although technically speaking, she faced Arachne. (Because, you know, she's a daughter of Athena, and there's that old story with Athena and Arachne... this is a good link: http://www.goddess-athena.org/Encyclopedia/Athena/Arachne.htm)

T2B92

I was browsing for the Tic Tac To-Do list and I came upon some interesting Tic Tac Toe websites.

This one shows you how to never lose at tic-tac-toe:

http://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-way-to-never-lose-at-Tic-Tac-Toe

I've played tic-tac-toe sooooo many times it's really boring, and yes, I do have my strategies for winning. It's simply a pattern that forces your opponent to act in certain ways, and setting up a two-way win trap, because if you have a 1 way win only, they can block you. My personal favourite is the triangle one, where you make a triange using 2 adjacent corner pieces and the centre piece. Contrary to what they say, there is a method to win if you play an edge piece. (not always, but it's possible). Basically you (try to) set up where you have an edge and corner piece side-by-side, and a centre piece, that is if your opponent lets you. This only works if your opponent doesn't block two of the ways out. If you draw it out (I don't have the corresponding images :( ) you'll see there'll be a horizontal way, a vertical way, and a diagonal way. But, if your opponent has already blocked two ways, (and assuming you went first, it's their turn), then they'll block your third way and you'll be stuck. It will (hopefully) result in a tie.

Urgghhhh this is really hard to explain with words. I might draw out a few boards and attempt it tomorrow.

But if you get bored of regular tic-tac-toe, try this one.

http://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2013/06/16/ultimate-tic-tac-toe/

It's Ultimate Tic-Tac-Toe! I've never tried this, in fact I just found it 10 mins ago, but it looks interesting (not to mention complicated). I'll just let the website explain... :)

I found this at Superstore a few months ago, but I didn't buy it. I thought it was really interesting, but I don't have a lot of spare time to read it. 

What is it?

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18490871-tic-tac-tome

It's an autonomous tic-tac-toe playing book!

It's really, really cool. You basically play the book at Tic-Tac-Toe, and there's only one way to win. Based on whether you start from the front or the back, you can choose to start first or let the book start first. Basically it's a grid with numbers in it for you to choose your next move, and the number indicates the page number.

It's really awesome.

I guess all of this shows how even the simplest game has loads of strategy thinking in it. (also that anything can be made harder. -.-)

T2B91

OMG I found this super cute to-do list:

http://www.designeatrepeat.com/2013/12/fun-free-printable-to-do-list/?cuid=632ec5272ae71c0602ff889b19434147

It's really unique: basically you check off to do's in a tic tac toe board!

T2B90

Me = Annabeth. I'm SOOOOO scared of spiders. (And ants and hornets and silkworms and moths and other various assorted bugs.)

Although I love how the fandom always portrays the characters as minions. XP

T2B89

OMG THIS IS SO ME:

Especially during debate.

T2B88

HAHA I LOVE THIS:

That's like the meme where one guy says "We have an army" and the other says "We have Percy Jackson".

T2B87

I went to the Math Challengers regional competition today :) It was really fun.

We had 2 individual parts in the morning, both of which I thought were a lot easier than the ones Ms. Knott gave us. Right before lunch was the team Co-op, where you do a team section. I was on the B team, and we split up the problems but there were harder than the ones in the morning, and our team was kinda disorganized, so we ended up (in the results) getting 5/15. -.- It was a fun experience though :)

In final scores, I got 31/50. :D I was so proud of myself. Under normal circumstances this wouldn't be a source of celebration, but Erica says the competitions are always pretty hard, so you know. :)

Erica did really well this year! She got 7th in Face-off, which is the final speed math competition, where top ten go head-to-head (goodness, that sounds like some bad commercial). 6th in individual scores, but apparently if you lose in Face-off you go one rank below or something, I didn't really get it. Patrick was 3rd, and Victor 1st. 4 of the Gr. 8's made it too :)

Churchill A Team made it to the provincials, with 1st place in Pool D! :D (The competition is separated into 4 pools of about 6 schools each, and you get top 10 individuals and top 3 teams plus honourable mention in each pool.) Go Churchill! :D

T2B86

I made myself a study list for the science quiz on Tuesday, because I was sick for some of it and I have to study extra hard to make sure I know the info.

Margo called me an overachiever.

Science Study List:

• Atomic theory/history
• Nomenclature
• Ionic
• Covalent
• Polyatomic ions
• Bohr Models
• **brackets with charges!
• Lewis Structures
• Polyatomic
• Quantum Mechanics
• Shells
• Organic Chemistry
• alkanes
• alkenes
• cis, trans, numbering, dienes
• alkynes
• 1-butyne, 2-butyne
• Functional Groups
• alcohols
• CH3
• carbon chains
• **number in one direction (ahahaha--One Direction--no? okay then.)
• longest chain
• ketones
• =O in middle of the chain
• aldehydes
• =O at end of chain
• Types of Reactions
• Combination/Synthesis
• Decomposition
• Single Replacement
• Double Replacement
• Combustion
• Neutralization (Acid-Base)
• Carbonate

Long? Guess who's going to spend their weekend on this. :)

T2B85

O. M. G.

Look at this! This is amazing! Someone was either very dedicated, very awesome, very crazy, or had too much spare time. This is soooo cool though! It's like Athena's owl in a night sky. I can appreciate how hard it is and how amazing it looks, despite the fact that I don't do nails.

IT'S SO COOL!

T2B84

OH. MY. GOODNESS.

I seriously-- I can't even.

http://www.cosforums.com/showpost.php?p=2111289

I found this link while browsing SparkLife Harry Potter theories, and someone wrote a FREAKING 25 PAGE ESSAY! Like OMG. (Haha--if my classmates knew, they'd say it was something I'd do.) It's about the Sibling Theory, which states that Harry and Hermione are siblings. I read part of it.... I don't buy it. It was written before Half-Blood Prince, though, so it was published a loooong time ago and the series wasn't complete yet. I think it'd have been interesting to wait for the books to come out one by one, because the only series I've done that for is the Heroes of Olympus, and to be honest, it wasn't, like, very fateful and depending on the last book. I think J.K. Rowling does a great job of the ending, but the ending to Blood of Olympus seemed really rushed, for a series that long. Harry Potter also did a really great job of keeping the suspense up and the plot new, whereas Heroes of Olympus started to get a bit... it's kind of hard to describe... it was kind of like, yes, yes, we know there's going to be a big war with Gaea at the end, but we don't really know anything about it. We don't know how this series is leading up to it, we don't see how any of this is crucial to the ending. The entire series totalled to 2725 pages, and the final battle was a whopping... 70 pages. I think it got rushed a bit, and it wasn't as much as fans could have hoped to get. It was still a good ending though.

I love how I started talking about a Harry Potter theory and somehow got to the ending of Percy Jackson.

Anyways....

I personally think Harry Potter offers more character development, and it allows us to see more into the characters, especially Harry and the way he perceives the world. I think there's more action in Percy Jackson, but eventually the plot gets a bit old. I think that's why Harry Potter is generally acclaimed as a classic around the world--it goes deeper than the surface.

So, back to the Sibling Theory.

The reason I don't really believe it is because the entire thing is like one big either-or fallacy. The either-or fallacy basically states that if A isn't true, then B must be true. They ignore all other possibilities. The entire essay was pretty much based on the fact that Hermione does this, so she must  be Harry's sister, because otherwise she wouldn't do this. Unfortunately, they failed to address the other dozens of possibilities Hermione could have done this!

For example: 

When reading the books, we have the feeling that Harry and Hermione have a special relation. They have a special thing - something unique, beyond friendship - that is not romantic. This is more visible on Hermione’s side. Her behaviour at the beginning of PS (before Harry and her become friends) is very interesting (see below). Through the entire series, her behaviour with Harry is very “sister-like”.
Harry and Hermione also have a way of guessing each other’s thoughts : this happens quite often, they know at first glance what the other has in mind while Ron is completely lost. Sometimes, they also finish each other’s sentences (not unlike Fred and George).

I think it's perfectly natural for someone to be friendly to someone else. You don't have to have a romantic relationship to be nice, and you don't have to be relatives to be nice. This clue doesn't really consider the fact that just because they're nice and not in a romantic way, doesn't mean that they have to be relatives. If that was the way the world worked, well... I'd be very sad indeed.

Another example:

- Hermione’s psychology : why is Hermione a “know-it-all” ? Why is it so important for her to be the best student in school ? There is a strange lack of background information concerning Hermione : JKR usually tells us about such things. For instance, we know Ron is a jealous character because of his childhood in the shadow of his five brothers, and also because of his family’s lack of money. We know Voldemort hates Muggles because of his father.
The Sibling Theory provides an answer : if Hermione knows that Harry is her brother, she wants to keep up with him ! Harry is “the boy who lived”, he is famous in the entire world ; so, Hermione must prove that she can do as well as he can do, or even better. At least, in class, she can answer questions he can’t !
The other possible answer would be : Hermione must prove she is the best because she is Muggle-born. But this doesn’t work : she was already a “know-it-all” when she first arrived at Hogwarts. If she had been knowing about the wizarding world for a few weeks only, this couldn’t have affected her psychology so quickly.

I try my hardest in school. I do my best. Do I secretly have a lost brother who doesn't know I exist? No. The possibility of other things, in this case simple motivation, is completely ignored!

- Chapter 17 :
“Hope you have – er – a good holiday,” said Hermione, looking uncertainly after Uncle Vernon, shocked that anyone could be so unpleasant.
And shocked that her uncle could be so unpleasant !

It doesn't have to be her uncle. I'd be pretty shocked if a compete stranger was that unpleasant. It's a natural human instinct. And yet, we jump straight to the conclusion that it's her uncle despite the numerous other possibilities of Hermione's surprise.

There's a lot more to the essay, but these three examples pretty much demonstrate the crux of what (I think) makes the essay less credible than it could be. If I have time, I'll finish reading the rest of the essay, but I've gotten through a little over half and I have to go do other things now (like legit things that I have to do XP).

T2B83

Yes. That's me. Except I don't reblog things... well, I guess I am right now. :)

I do like Harry Potter a lot though.

T2B82

I cannot believe I didn't think of this before.

So I searched for mason bee houses about a week ago, and they were all either wood or milk cartons. Since I don't have a drill, or wood, I made a (forced) decision to do milk cartons. There were these really pretty commercial mason bee houses that I found, and I thought I could try to DIY one of those but again, no wood. :'( So I went searching again today, and I found this GORGEOUS bee house that I could actually do.

I was rolling tubes the other day in Applied Skills, from just regular lined paper, but then I realized that that wouldn't work. Commerical nesting tubes are made from cardboard, and the wood ones are made from, well, wood. I did a little research and apparently wax paper is the best. I think (think?) I have wax paper at home, even though I don't bake. ***

Mason bees like rolls of different sizes, although some sources told me that a pencil was the perfect size. I think I'll roll some pencil tubes and some other tubes, but the pencil tubes were giving me grief the other day in class. Maybe I'll coat them with wax paper, so the wax tubes don't stick to it ;). Okay, sorry, lame joke.

ANYWAYS. Moving on. The website that shows you how to do the mason bee house in the photo says you should put them in bathroom tissue tubes, but I'm not really sure why. I think I'll modify it a little--they only use one can, but my cans are small so I'll use 3 and stick them together. I also will add a roof, so the poor bees don't get wet. (Just like, I dunno, use cardboard/wood and cover them with something waterproof.) Maybe I'll coat them with wax paper. XP. I'll stop with the wax paper now.

*rubs hands in anticipation* So excited to make this! :D

***OBTW I just found out that wax paper is actually made differently than parchment paper. Wax paper is coated with wax (no duh) while parchment paper is coated with silicon. Apparently wax paper can't be used for baking, because it'll melt, whereas parchment paper works like non-stick spray for baking pans. So when I said I have wax paper even though I don't bake, I lied. I just have wax paper. It has nothing to do with baking. Although I suppose I could have parchment paper... I never really paid attention to the difference. 

T2B81

I just found this awesome google Hangouts hack.

(The Internet rocks. :D)

If you press up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, enter, you get this mountain background. It's called the Konami background change.

EET'S SOO COOOL

Margo and I were just typing smileys all over because Hangouts has these hidden animated emoticons that pop up when you type certain things, so we just went crazy all over, and now our chat history is full of things like, "Hahahaha", "Woohoo", and "MWAHAHAHAHAHA" ('cause that gets a little celebratory emoji. :D)

And now I'm going to go back to working on my math now. :)

T2B80

I... I can't even...

http://cupcakepedia.com/2014/08/28/selfie-toaster-that-can-print-your-face-on-your-toast/

Though I wouldn't mind printing, say, this on it:

(I literally just found this it's so awesome)

Might not print too well though. Hm. (because it's white on black, so it might burn the entire toast... I really don't like burnt toast...)

Oh--off on a tangent now: I like toast that's only slightly brown, whereas my mom likes toast that's, er, toasted, (couldn't resist... XP) more. The weird thing is, we like the opposite for pancakes. :P

T2B79

It's absolutely amazing the things people come up with sometimes.

http://cupcakepedia.com/2014/02/25/magnetic-spot-scrubber/\

I mean. GE. NI. US.

I personally don't have that problem, but it's a really smart idea. I think they could probably expand it to things like sponges, detergent saturated microfibre cloths, things like that. I think it's rubber, but that might not clean everything that people want to clean.

Ooh! If I were doing it I'd make it a detachable head. :) Although I'm sure something like that requires a LOT of research, testing, and it would have to be patented.

There's a video on the Amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CFIKM2Q/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00CFIKM2Q&linkCode=as2&tag=cupcakepedia-20

You really have to see it to believe it. (Well, I'm still kind of skeptic, but I mean... it's hard to understand how it works until you watch the video.)

T2B78

I literally just spent like an hour trying to do this.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/60924/name-50-most-mentioned-harry-potter-characters-without-missing-one

It's like a quiz about Harry Potter characters and it is so hard. I thought I knew the series well... I can even do Heads Up! about it better than most people can ('cause I'm a huge nerd and I love this series. <3) but I think the hardest part is that you're not allowed to name people outside of the top 50 and that's what screws me up.

Give it a try though, see how well you know Harry Potter. :D

T2B77

O.O THERE IS A DRAGON NAMED DRACOREX HOGWARTSIA.

HOW CAN THIS BE.

I first found it on the Harry Potter fandom and I seriously thought it was a spoof... then I searched it up and there is actual info on it. Like actually. There's a National Geographic article on it (just a short little blurb, I think there's more but it's on the actual magazine): http://www.ngkids.co.uk/did-you-know/meet-some-deadly-dinos/new-comment

I found this on the fandom and I seriously did not believe it.

#HARRYPOTTER

T2B76

Haha I love this, it's so funny:

I'd be nice and lend it to them. SPREAD THE LOVE OF READING!

T2B75

I GOT 20 ON MY MAAAATH QUIIIIZ I GOT 20 ON MY MAAAATH QUIIIIZ

We got our Ch5 Quiz1 quiz back on Polynomials AND I GOT 20/20 :D

I seriously got like 78% on my last math test, because I missed the lesson and I panicked when I ran out of time at the end AND BECAUSE I GOT A DIAGRAM WRONG, I GOT THE WHOLE QUESTION WRONG AND THE OTHER QUESTION I GOT THE DIAGRAM WRONG TOO D':

So anyways that's like THE FREAKING LOWEST mark I've EVER gotten in ANY subject in my entire LIFE! (silent raging)

And so I freaked out, and that happened to be on the day of the pre-IB testing, and uggghhhh it was a huge mess.

SO anyways, I got this test back and I'm really happy because this will pull my mark up to an A. I was LITERALLY getting like a B in math, around 84%. I NEVER GET A B IN MATH. NEVER EVER EVER. (Actually in any subject... not counting PE.)

Hopefully this little 20 will push me up to a 86%, and then since polynomials is pretty easy I'll hopefully raise my mark with this test. Plus we have another Ch. 7 test so I'm not too worried, 'cause we always have lots of opportunities for quizzes and tests and stuff in math. Because, you know, our entire mark is based on quizzes/tests. So you know.

OBTW I'm also working on my fallacies for English right now, and they're soooo fun. Mr. Hauck gave us logical fallacies notes to define, and I really like them, because it's fun to come up with examples and it makes you sound really smart when you use them in debates and things like that. :)

My favourite is strawmanning. There's actually a story behind that--so Margo and I are debate partners, right? The first time we heard about straw manning was just before the UBC Regionals. I thought it was spelled strawmanning, and Margo thought it was spelled strongmanning. The other day, during a debate, I wrote "point out they're strawmanning" and she kind of looked at it in confusion. When she sat down after her speech, the first thing she whispered to me was, "What's strawmanning?" I was like, "You know, where they twist your words?" We cut it off there and after the debate, she told me she always thought it was strong manning, and I was like, "Oh really? I dunno, it just sounded like straw manning." So then I thought it was strongmanning... (like strong-arming your opponents I guess?) because it makes a lot more sense then strawmanning. So we asked Mr. Hauck after debate today, which one it was and he said it was straw manning, and I was all like HA! So I was right! Although it still didn't make sense why. I searched it up today and according to one (not entirely expertise-d) website, it's as if you took a burning straw man (like a scarecrow), threw it on the floor, and said, "Look, it's my opponent's dangerous straw man!" and then doused it with fire and pretended to save the day, all while your opponents look on in bemusement at the burning straw man that was not theirs.

I'm not sure that's entirely true, but it's certainly an interesting explanation and memory trick. :)

Here's the website: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/what-is-a-straw-man-argument

T2B72, 73, 74

I just realized that whenever I don't blog for a few days, I resort to the Percy Jackson fandom.

Mostly because, I've probably just had a very busy few days, blogging slipped my mind, and I'm relaxing at the Percy Jackson fandom when I suddenly realize--oh wait, I've got to blog.

So the first 3 things that come to mind are all Percy Jackson related. XP

Anyways, I JUST finished Science Fair with Amy, and I'M SO GLAD. I think we'll actually do pretty well, because our project affects literally everyone. (it's about water.)

I'd normally blog about 3 separate things, but I'm really tired today, so I'll just blog once. :)... *shifty grin*

OMG I JUST REALIZED THAT I HAVE A MATH CONTEST ON TUESDAY

HOOOOOLY WHAT AM I GOING TO DO????

I have AMC10 day after tomorrow, and I haven't prepared at all. I was going to work on it over Winter Break, but then I got sick, and when I got back I kind of got swamped in work. This weekend I crammed for Science Fair.

Who am I kidding. I'm just making excuses.

I SWEAR I WILL NEVER DO THIS AGAIN, BECAUSE THIS CONTEST IS ACTUALLY IMPORTANT. IT'S SOMETHING I MIGHT ACTUALLY NEED TO REFERENCE IN THE FUTURE.

IT'S ALSO HARD AND HAPPENS TO BE THE ONLY ONE I'VE TOTALLY BLOWN.

WHY OH WHY MUST THESE THINGS LAND ON THE SAME WEEKEND???

I'm going to go do those practice contests now.