Dalek Pumpkin

My family and I decided to conform to societal conventions and carve pumpkins last night. Now I'm really not very experienced in this art. I think it's mostly because the opportunity to carve a pumpkin when it is socially acceptable comes only once a year.
Last Friday, Hank Green posted a video on YouTube and at the end, he showed some pictures of awesome nerd pumpkins. One of the pictures was of a pumpkin carved in the shape of a Dalek (Daleks are some of the bad guys in Doctor Who, and I won't spoil why they're bad or what they do because you should watch the show) and I saw that picture and decided that my pumpkin this year was going to be a Dalek. So that's exactly what I did. I think I bent the saw that I used because my pumpkin was so thick.
But this is what it turned out to look like:

I'm particularly proud of it. I didn't really have anything that would emit a light out of its head so I had to use The Doctor's sonic screwdriver, and I don't know what hardcore Doctor Who fans will think of that but who cares?
My dad's pumpkin is also very cool. I think he debated over what to carve for at least half an hour. At one point, he wanted to carve the Firefly logo and the white tree, the elvish that's on the One Ring, and Mike Wazowski. He also seriously considered carving the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. logo, but that show isn't very good so he decided against it. In the end, he decided on the Avengers icon, and it turned out really cool. Needless to say, we're a nerd family.

I don't know if the neighbors will understand, but those who do are truly awesome. Also, anyone who comes to our house in either Doctor Who or Avengers/superhero attire will get extra candy. Just no Reese's, because those are my favorite. 

The Time Machine

I'm going to tell you a story.
Yesterday, I was at the museum, as it seems that I usually am on Saturdays. Though this Saturday was different because the docent headquarters had changed places. It had changed from a bright room covered with stickers on the third floor of the museum, to a room that I could only really describe as a dungeon. The room, it turns out, is in the basement, with pipes running along the ceiling. Also, it turns out that whoever painted the entire basement was an avid fan of the color grey. Grey walls, grey floor, grey handrails, everything is grey and has no personality whatsoever.
So it was lunchtime, and I was eating lunch with some of my friends. One boy was running around with a broomstick that he had found, pretending that it was a combination of a Firebolt, a Nimbus 2000, Cleansweep, and a Comet 360. Apparently this broomstick could choose which type of broomstick it wanted to be, so you could transform it from a Firebolt to a Cleansweep whenever you wanted to (though I personally don't know why anyone would want to use a Cleansweep when you could have a Firebolt). Some other kids were looking around the room to see what cool things that there were (nothing), and we were all commenting on how we should have the people from Extreme Home Makeover come and do an Extreme Office Makeover episode to spruce up the office, when someone noticed a can sitting on top of the wall. This room's wall didn't reach the ceiling, so there was about a foot long gap between the pipes covering the ceiling and the wall, and on top of that wall, sat a tin can.
Nick got on a chair and brought it down for all of us to see, and we discovered, to our great delight, that the can had the words "time machine" and "open in 2013" written on it in sharpie.
Well, naturally, we were all very curious. I think we all were remembering the time machines that we buried in our backyard or in my case the time machines that I wanted to make to bury in my backyard. Since the year is currently 2013, we felt we had a right to open this time machine and find out what was inside.
We didn't have a can opener, nor any means to get one, so the boy with the broomstick offered it up and stabbed the can lid with the stick portion of the broom. Well that turned out not to be a very good idea. We all let out a little gasp of surprise as quite a lot of a goopy, yellowish substance sprayed the floor and the table.
It was apple pie filling.
Who would put apple pie filling in a can and label it "time machine?"Whoever did that was a genius. We were all a bit disappointed, but laughed, as it was kind of funny, and proceeded to clean the place up. At least we weren't sprayed with lots of dead spiders or something.

Otherwise Known as Paradise

I was talking with my dad today at dinner and he asked me what authors I would read no matter what.
I couldn't really think of one off the top of my head, because that's not how my brain works, but he mentioned John Green. I will read whatever John Green writes until the day that I die.

I was at Barnes and Noble the other day, when I saw this table. I think this table sums of paradise pretty well.

So then I went on Goodreads, where I catalogue all of the books that I've read, to help me jog my memory.  I definitely would read Lois Lowry no matter what. I think I've done that, actually. There are times when I go to the library and go to the "L" section to see if there are any of her books that I haven't read. And if I haven't read them, I will borrow them. The same used to be for Margaret Peterson Haddix, who wrote one of my favorite books, Double Identity. After I read that book, I went through a Margaret Peterson Haddix phase where I wouldn't read anything else. There's also Kristen Cashore, who wrote Fire and Graceling, which I read more recently. She's only written three books so far, but when she comes out with a new one, especially if it takes place in the same world, I will read it.

The Triumphant Return!

I guessed you have noticed by now that I haven't been on the internet for quite some time. I have an excellent reason, which is that I had to study for an AP European History test.
So, basically, for the past couple of weeks, my life has been nonexistent, and I have been locking myself in my room, forcefully telling myself that I need to know everything there is to know about the War of Spanish Succession and everything else that ever happened in Europe. It is unfortunate, because all of the things that I do know, like the Black Death and the Great Schism and the Hundred Years War weren't in the Princeton review book, and I don't even think you have to know them for the test.
By far some of my favorite moments of European History include the Time of Troubles and the Defenestration of Prague. Also, there's the gunpowder plot and its stupidity. Apparently all of the gunpowder in the gunpowder plot would have blown up about four blocks when lit, instead of just Parliament.
Anyway, I went through about six weeks of stress, and still kind of feel like an underachiever because I know some people who took three APs, which will be me next year. At least there's a giant curve on the calc test.
So, I'm back! I haven't picked up a book in forever, but I just started reading A Drawing of the Dark by Tim Powers, and I need to finish all the other books that I started in March and haven't picked up since.
And maybe, with the summer months approaching,  I'll start posting more than 4 times a month....

If I Had 17 Million Dollars

I was in math class today learning about geometric series. We were working on a problem about winning the lottery, and I think we were supposed to get 17 million dollars a year for 20 years, and we had to figure out the future value of that money. But the problem aside, what would I do if I won 17 million dollars?
I asked my friend Jacob, who was sitting next to me, what he would do, and he said that he would buy a bunch of telescopes and then donate the rest of his money to NASA. He likes space.
So I thought about it for a bit, and I decided that I would travel. I would go to all the places that I want to visit, like Scotland and Wales and Turkey and Greece and Ethiopia and Antarctica and Peru and basically the whole entire world. I'd also probably go to Harry Potter World, or, better yet, just go to the actual Hogwarts and learn magic.
Then, when I come back, I'd go to Scotland and buy a castle and live in the highlands. I just think that Scotland is a beautiful place with all those mountains. So that's where I would live.
In my castle, I'd build my own library (if it didn't already have one) where I would keep all of my books and whenever I'd feel like it, I'd just go and read.
I did go through a couple of minutes in class when I wanted to build myself an underwater castle, but I thought that that might be a little extreme. And anyway, if I had an underwater castle, it would be hard for people to come visit me because they would probably need a SCUBA license to get down there.
So by the time that I've traveled the world, bought myself a castle in the highlands, and built myself my own personal library, I don't think I'd have that much money left. But then, I'd just get 17 million dollars (or 16.04 million dollars in present value assuming 6% interest rate) the next year, so it'd be all good.

Why Russia Started WWI

A couple of weeks ago, my history teacher announced that we were going to have a debate in class, and the topic we were debating was "which country started WWI?" Now, obviously, there's not one single country that did start a world war, but we were supposed to find one country and blame it for everything. We could discuss anything from the 1880's to August 4th, 1914.
My group got stuck trying to defend Germany.
So, as you might imagine, Germany has a lot of dirt on it (which I might discuss another time). So we decided to blame Russia.
But before we got to the research, we started to form alliances with other countries, and by the end of the week or so, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Serbia, Britain, and France were all in an alliance against Russia. At this point, I basically predicted that France and Britain would bail on us and join Russia, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
So we started to do research. We researched Germany through books like Germany's Aims in the First World War by Fritz Fischer and The Guns of August and The Proud Tower by Barbara Tuchman. Then, I went to my local library and checked out practically every single book about WWI and the events leading up to the war so that nobody else from the other groups could get them.
We were paranoid, a little (sort of like Germany in the late 19th century!) that everyone was going to backstab us, so we had to research everyone.
And now, here is why Russia started the war.
Russia had a lot of motive. It wanted to start a war so that it could acquire the straights. The straights were important to Russia because it was one of the only ways to get out into the ocean that didn't freeze for half of the year.
Also, there's the question of Russia's military. Now we all know that Russia is a gigantic land mass full of tons of people, but it's military in 1914 consisted of 1,284,000 men (according to Fritz Fischer) sitting on the Austro-Hungarian boarder. That seems pretty threatening to me.
Then, there's mobilization. During this time, mobilization of an army meant war. Nobody mobilized if they didn't want war. Russia was the first country to mobilize it's army. It was even warned by the British and French foreign ambassadors Buchanan and Cambon that if the Tsar mobilized, that would push the Germans to declare war. And yet, Russia still did it, and look what happened. Germany invaded Belgium.
Russia started encouraging the Serbian plotters in 1912 and in 1914, the Tsar promised the Serbians arms and ammunition. Since there was a cultural tie between Russia and Serbia, Apis believed that when the assassination of the Archduke would cause war, that Russia would support Serbia.
Then, there's the secret diplomacy with France. People get suspicious with a secret diplomacy, and that's never good.
Of corse there's more than this, and we elaborated more on this stuff. But the debate went well. Russia got kicked out first, and then Serbia, and then France was trying to get us out of the debate, but we stalled them and then the debate ended, so we didn't get kicked out. What I thought was particularly amusing was when someone on the Russian team said something like "mobilization doesn't mean war," and Serbia, Austria-Hungary and Germany all said at the same time "YES IT DOES!!" Eventually, the debate ended up just being a shouting match between the countries. But at least Germany didn't get kicked out.

On a completely different note, by Laughing at Dragons got picked as one of the best personal blogs of 2013 by TYWKIDBI, which is very exciting. YAY!

Shipping

Shipping, it seems, is a very important part of internet culture. So here, I'm going to share some of my favorite ships.

Literature:
Lizzy Bennet and Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice
Neville and Luna from Harry Potter
Tobias and Tris from Divergent
Eowyn and Faramir from Lord of the Rings
Katniss and Peeta from The Hunger Games

Television:
11th Doctor and River Song from Doctor Who
Sherlock and Watson from Sherlock (yes, yes, Moffat, please please make it happen, and while we're talking about making things happen, can season 3 please come out BEFORE 2014??)
Patrick Jane and Theresa Lisbon from The Mentalist
Daisy and Alfred from Downton Abbey