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.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Monday, April 22, 2013
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!
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!
Sunday, April 14, 2013
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
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
Thursday, April 11, 2013
CHARLOTTE!!
I was practicing piano today, when something very strange happened. I got a phone call.
Now, you might not think that that isn't very strange, but that's not the strange part. Though, nobody ever calls me (except my mother), so it was a little out of the ordinary.
No, the weird thing is what happened when I picked up the phone. I said, "hello?" like any normal, sane individual would do (because I'm a normal, sane individual), and the reply was "Charlotte? Charlotte? CHARLOTTE?? CHARLOTTE!!!"
I'm not Charlotte, lady.
So I replied with, "I'm sorry, I think you have the wrong number," and the reply was, "NO, YOU'RE LYING TO ME!"
So then I just hung up. The person then proceeded to call me back, but I didn't answer.
The thing is, I really wanted to answer with some snarky comment, but since I'm bad with coming up with those on the spot (I always think of them when I'm in the shower), I didn't. Though I kind of did want to call this person back and yell some random name back at them, but I didn't want to get into anything sticky.
Now, you might not think that that isn't very strange, but that's not the strange part. Though, nobody ever calls me (except my mother), so it was a little out of the ordinary.
No, the weird thing is what happened when I picked up the phone. I said, "hello?" like any normal, sane individual would do (because I'm a normal, sane individual), and the reply was "Charlotte? Charlotte? CHARLOTTE?? CHARLOTTE!!!"
I'm not Charlotte, lady.
So I replied with, "I'm sorry, I think you have the wrong number," and the reply was, "NO, YOU'RE LYING TO ME!"
So then I just hung up. The person then proceeded to call me back, but I didn't answer.
The thing is, I really wanted to answer with some snarky comment, but since I'm bad with coming up with those on the spot (I always think of them when I'm in the shower), I didn't. Though I kind of did want to call this person back and yell some random name back at them, but I didn't want to get into anything sticky.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
The Easter Egg Hunt
I went to the Museum yesterday. I hadn't been in a long time because of tournaments and whatnot. So when I walked into the doors yesterday I was totally shocked that there were LOTS of people there. I walked up the stars and heard things like, "I think the eggs are this way," which I thought was weird, until I found out that the Carnegie Museum has an annual Easter egg hunt.
Apparently, these little kids get these clues, and near the thing that they're supposed to find, there are a bunch of eggs and they get to have one.
It was a little while later and I was setting up the Jurassic cart with a fellow teen named Cathy, when all these kids and parents start coming up to us and asking us where the eggs were. I didn't have any eggs with me, but then they started asking us if we had a souropod egg and asking us where the baby apatasourous was, and I thought it was really strange until I found out that that was what the kids were supposed to find.
Then, a couple of minutes later, Linda, the teen who's in charge of us starts bringing this HUGE basket of plastic easter eggs over with a stamp pad. Apparently WE were supposed to be handing out the eggs after we explain the souropod egg and the kids find the baby apatasourous. Inside our eggs, there were those cheap fake tattoos.
Let me just say that it was crazy. In an hour and a half, we got over 300 visitors. I explained what the souropod egg was about a million times, and after a while, my tongue got all messed up and I couldn't speak. I think I let a kid hold the egg and said, "here, you can have it"when I really meant, "here, you can hold it." I think I also started pointing at the egg and saying "this is a dinosaur" a couple of times, which got people confused. But I had never said the same thing over and over again that many times before, and I have to say, it takes endurance.
The egg hunt finished at around one, so we packed up and headed to lunch. There were A LOT of eggs left over, so we got to get some of the goodies that were inside the eggs. Brandon, who's in college and comes in every Saturday to help out, started tattooing himself with those cheap little fake tattoos. On one arm, he put a dinosaur, and on the other, he said we could pick the tattoo for him, so we all picked a butterfly. He put the butterfly on, and then after admiring it for a couple of seconds, goes, "the thing is, I have a date tonight." After laughing for a bit, the us girls of the program insisted that guys with fake butterfly tattoos on their upper forearms are much cooler than those that don't have them.
Apparently, these little kids get these clues, and near the thing that they're supposed to find, there are a bunch of eggs and they get to have one.
It was a little while later and I was setting up the Jurassic cart with a fellow teen named Cathy, when all these kids and parents start coming up to us and asking us where the eggs were. I didn't have any eggs with me, but then they started asking us if we had a souropod egg and asking us where the baby apatasourous was, and I thought it was really strange until I found out that that was what the kids were supposed to find.
Then, a couple of minutes later, Linda, the teen who's in charge of us starts bringing this HUGE basket of plastic easter eggs over with a stamp pad. Apparently WE were supposed to be handing out the eggs after we explain the souropod egg and the kids find the baby apatasourous. Inside our eggs, there were those cheap fake tattoos.
Let me just say that it was crazy. In an hour and a half, we got over 300 visitors. I explained what the souropod egg was about a million times, and after a while, my tongue got all messed up and I couldn't speak. I think I let a kid hold the egg and said, "here, you can have it"when I really meant, "here, you can hold it." I think I also started pointing at the egg and saying "this is a dinosaur" a couple of times, which got people confused. But I had never said the same thing over and over again that many times before, and I have to say, it takes endurance.
The egg hunt finished at around one, so we packed up and headed to lunch. There were A LOT of eggs left over, so we got to get some of the goodies that were inside the eggs. Brandon, who's in college and comes in every Saturday to help out, started tattooing himself with those cheap little fake tattoos. On one arm, he put a dinosaur, and on the other, he said we could pick the tattoo for him, so we all picked a butterfly. He put the butterfly on, and then after admiring it for a couple of seconds, goes, "the thing is, I have a date tonight." After laughing for a bit, the us girls of the program insisted that guys with fake butterfly tattoos on their upper forearms are much cooler than those that don't have them.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Book #4: Bitterblue
It's been a while since I wrote a book review entry. I wrote one about King Lear, but I didn't review the book that I finished beforehand: Bitterblue by Kristen Cashore.
This book takes place in the same world that Graceling took place in. It's a magical fantasy land where there are these special people who are called Gracelings. Gracelings are like X-Men; they have supernatural abilities.
Bitterblue was quite longer than Graceling and Fire. I enjoyed getting to know the world better and getting to see the characters again. There was really great imagery, for I could imagine the world really well, and I think that Cashore put a lot of effort into thinking about it, which is really good. I still think that Po, one of the main characters in both Graceling and Bitterblue, is amazing.
However, the problem that I had with Bitterblue is that it had the same theme as Fire had. A daughter trying to find out who she is after the death of her terrible father. Maybe I would have thought it better if I hadn't read Fire, but Fire is the best out of all three books.
The reason that the book was too long, I think, is because of the many plots. There's a lot going on in this book, from Bitterblue's relationship with her friends, from the politics of the world, and figuring out how terrible Bitterblue's father, Leck, really was. Of course, there's a lot more, but I don't think it was really that necessary.
The one thing that really disappointed me was Fire's appearance in the book. I really like Fire's character, but her role in Bitterblue could have been so much bigger, and it wasn't. She appeared in the last couple of pages, only to leave again, with little interaction. And the little interaction there was was mostly politics.
One thing that I really liked was the fact that the characters were discovering Fire's world as well. Fire and Bitterblue take place in the same world, but neither of the worlds know that the other one exists, so it was cool to see how Bitterblue found Fire's world.
4 starts out of 5
This book takes place in the same world that Graceling took place in. It's a magical fantasy land where there are these special people who are called Gracelings. Gracelings are like X-Men; they have supernatural abilities.
Bitterblue was quite longer than Graceling and Fire. I enjoyed getting to know the world better and getting to see the characters again. There was really great imagery, for I could imagine the world really well, and I think that Cashore put a lot of effort into thinking about it, which is really good. I still think that Po, one of the main characters in both Graceling and Bitterblue, is amazing.
However, the problem that I had with Bitterblue is that it had the same theme as Fire had. A daughter trying to find out who she is after the death of her terrible father. Maybe I would have thought it better if I hadn't read Fire, but Fire is the best out of all three books.
The reason that the book was too long, I think, is because of the many plots. There's a lot going on in this book, from Bitterblue's relationship with her friends, from the politics of the world, and figuring out how terrible Bitterblue's father, Leck, really was. Of course, there's a lot more, but I don't think it was really that necessary.
The one thing that really disappointed me was Fire's appearance in the book. I really like Fire's character, but her role in Bitterblue could have been so much bigger, and it wasn't. She appeared in the last couple of pages, only to leave again, with little interaction. And the little interaction there was was mostly politics.
One thing that I really liked was the fact that the characters were discovering Fire's world as well. Fire and Bitterblue take place in the same world, but neither of the worlds know that the other one exists, so it was cool to see how Bitterblue found Fire's world.
4 starts out of 5
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Driving!!
After school today, I got into a driver's ed car to have driving lesson with driver's ed Fred. I had never driven before.
I got my permit last Friday. I was going to write a post about how terrible the DMV is, but since everybody knows what an awful place it is, I didn't think I needed to. After I got my permit, I called the driver's ed school that I had taken driver's ed from and asked if I could have some lessons to learn how to drive. Cindy, the other driver's ed teacher, said that I should start out with driver's ed Fred and not with my parents so I wouldn't learn any bad habits.
I told driver's ed Fred that I hadn't driven before, so he took me up to Highland Park. Highland Park has a one way road that just goes around in a circle around the park. It was actually a really nice place to start out.
I started out going what Fred called "grandma speed," which was about five miles an hour in a twenty five mile an our zone. Thankfully, there weren't that many cars around, so I wasn't causing traffic or anything. The thing is, "grandma speed" actually looks like you're going really fast if you're just looking forward, and then you look to the side and realize you could probably walk faster than you're going right now.
After a few laps around the park, I was starting to get the hang of it, and I was going at around twenty miles an hour. We stopped and talked about the steering wheel and the hand-over-hand technique, and we continued on. Another two laps later, driver's ed Fred asked if I wanted to go out into traffic.
This was a terrifying aspect to me. I was driving pretty well in a two lane, one way street, with minimal traffic, and a few dog walkers. But going out into traffic..... That means there's more people, way more cars, and those drivers who think it's a good idea to tailgate a driver's ed vehicle. But I figured that I would have to go out there sometime, and there was no better time than with an instructor, so, I said yes.
Normal traffic seems like a very crowded place. There are cars everywhere. I don't think the regular drivers who have been driving a while realize how many cars there are. There were those times when I would get that feeling. I would ask myself if I was really driving an actual vehicle or if I was really just sitting at home playing Mario Kart. Though, I have to say, I'm a pro at Mario Kart. When I look back on this in the future, I'll laugh at myself because by then, hopefully, driving will be a piece of cake.
But, I think I'm missing the point I'm trying to make. I DROVE HOME!!!! I drove 5.5 miles (I looked it up on Google maps) without crashing or killing anyone!!! Within an hour and a half, I was driving!!! Actually driving!!! And I went up to 35 miles an hour.
I got my permit last Friday. I was going to write a post about how terrible the DMV is, but since everybody knows what an awful place it is, I didn't think I needed to. After I got my permit, I called the driver's ed school that I had taken driver's ed from and asked if I could have some lessons to learn how to drive. Cindy, the other driver's ed teacher, said that I should start out with driver's ed Fred and not with my parents so I wouldn't learn any bad habits.
I told driver's ed Fred that I hadn't driven before, so he took me up to Highland Park. Highland Park has a one way road that just goes around in a circle around the park. It was actually a really nice place to start out.
I started out going what Fred called "grandma speed," which was about five miles an hour in a twenty five mile an our zone. Thankfully, there weren't that many cars around, so I wasn't causing traffic or anything. The thing is, "grandma speed" actually looks like you're going really fast if you're just looking forward, and then you look to the side and realize you could probably walk faster than you're going right now.
After a few laps around the park, I was starting to get the hang of it, and I was going at around twenty miles an hour. We stopped and talked about the steering wheel and the hand-over-hand technique, and we continued on. Another two laps later, driver's ed Fred asked if I wanted to go out into traffic.
This was a terrifying aspect to me. I was driving pretty well in a two lane, one way street, with minimal traffic, and a few dog walkers. But going out into traffic..... That means there's more people, way more cars, and those drivers who think it's a good idea to tailgate a driver's ed vehicle. But I figured that I would have to go out there sometime, and there was no better time than with an instructor, so, I said yes.
Normal traffic seems like a very crowded place. There are cars everywhere. I don't think the regular drivers who have been driving a while realize how many cars there are. There were those times when I would get that feeling. I would ask myself if I was really driving an actual vehicle or if I was really just sitting at home playing Mario Kart. Though, I have to say, I'm a pro at Mario Kart. When I look back on this in the future, I'll laugh at myself because by then, hopefully, driving will be a piece of cake.
But, I think I'm missing the point I'm trying to make. I DROVE HOME!!!! I drove 5.5 miles (I looked it up on Google maps) without crashing or killing anyone!!! Within an hour and a half, I was driving!!! Actually driving!!! And I went up to 35 miles an hour.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)