long-awaited haircut lol

SO today I finally got a haircut. 

First, in the morning, I took my English class. In English today we answered some discussion questions from the text that we were supposed to annotate at the end of last class on Monday. 

The teacher didn't divide groups this time, she told everyone that wanted to discuss to all go to the exact same breakout room and woah, I bet it was pure chaos in there. Well, I can only speculate since I didn't actually go in but from my past experiences with breakout rooms and with these kids I'm pretty sure it'll end up that way sooner or later. 

Anyways, I just told Psi and Beam to go to another breakout room and we worked on the questions there. Psi and I tried to keep it a secret cuz the teacher clearly said that if we wanted to work in a group then we HAD to go to breakout room #1 but the teacher asked Beam something in the main room and he gave it away. ah, at least the teacher was understanding and let us continue but it was a close call. 

OHH yes how could I forget about MEMBEAN? The teacher announced to us today that we would be officially starting Membean next week and she said the rules. The minimum amount of minutes we need to do per week is 37, which is a bit of an odd number but oh well the teacher gets to decide after all. If we don't want to lose points we need to do at least 37 minutes a week and divide them between at least 2 days. So we can't cram all the minutes in one single day or we'll lose 1 point. oof. 

Actually, originally it was that we would lose 2 points if we did it in less than 3 days and I bargained with the teacher to make it less than 2 days and she agreed. Then she even lowered the point deduction from 2 points to 1 which I thought was very generous of her. That being said, I should probably start setting up those Membean alarms soon as a memorandum (MEMBEAN WORD) to reduce my chances of forgetting lol. 

Ok moving on, in Spanish we did a quote and then did this little individual project thing for 25 points. The project took most of the class and then like 4 people presented which took the remainder of the class. I haven't presented yet so maybe I could tweak mine a little. However, I don't really see anything that needs fixing, hmm maybe I'll see if I can add something then... 

OK enough of that, last class History. At the very start of the class, the teacher gave us this document of "review" questions from a PowerPoint we looked at in one of the previous classes and we needed to answer them using our notes. So that took up most of the class, then using what was left we started the homework which was to annotate and take notes on a few pages of the textbook. It was on natural resources if you were wondering. 

OHH and then after class, I got that haircut. Um nothing much to say about it, my mom took her time cutting so it took like an hour and she basically gives me the same consistent look every single time. I wonder what I'll do without her when I go off to college. 

I also took a math class on multiplicative orders today. It's usually an alternative to Bezout but sometimes it makes the problem easier when compared to using Bezout. I guess in the end it depends on the problem. HEY I finished my blog pretty early today. Finally. cya!

maximum effort?

Hello! Today was a pretty fun day. 

In the morning I had Physics first and today's class went super fast. I mean the teacher's speed on covering new material is like super ultrasonic speed.  

You know how a textbook is divided into chapters right? One textbook usually has around 12-15 chapters and those 12-15 chapters make up a very thick and heavy book. However, the teacher today just blasted through an entire chapter in around 20 minutes. TWENTY MINUTES! This chapter was made up of around 5 lessons and he literally had 1-2 slides per lesson on his PowerPoint and then that was the end of it. 

We went through Newton's first law, all sorts of different forces, vectors and how to calculate them, equilibrium, net force, weight, and torsion, wow it was a ton. My hand was hurting so much from just taking notes on these fresh concepts that I've never heard of before. And then we did a worksheet which was supposed to be for homework but he basically told us all the answers during class. 

The next class was Music. Basically, all we did was polish my Turkish March because on Friday we were going to have this tiny informal recital just during the class and we each have to play a piece.  

Then I didn't really eat any lunch because I was still pretty full from the breakfast I had which I ate during the break between Physics and Music since I had a morning Model UN meeting that I didn't expect. 

Next up, PE! To be perfectly honest here, today's PE really wasn't half-bad. 

Actually, for the first half, I actually had some fun. We looked at this chart that ranked different activities on a scale from 1 to 10. There was from very light activity, for example, sitting down and scrolling through your phone to maximum effort activity, where you need to use everything you have. 

Then she divided the class into 6 groups to come up with examples of the different stages we talked about so each group gets a distinct stage from another group. And of course, yours truly got the extreme maximum effort activity so I got real creative since I didn't really know what was considered "MAXIMUM EFFORT" activity. 

Ahem, I will mention brief some examples that I came up with:

1. Hanging on for dear life as you dangle above a pool of boiling hot lava

2. Being chased by a bull shark while scuba diving and your oxygen tank has run out of oxygen

3. Swimming horizontally across Lake Ontario with no gear nor assistance 

4. Attempting to hold a plank for more than 10 hours to break the world record

yeah, there were a few more but those were the funniest ones. The whole class was literally wheezing after I presented my examples lol, and the teacher was also doubling over from laughter. 

Nevertheless, I thought I wasn't going to do good since these examples were super farfetched compared to some very unoriginal ones my classmates did like, swimming, running, playing tennis. BOOOORING. But, I'm glad it all turned out fine in the end. Then we did this workout but it wasn't that bad so I'll just fast forward to math. 

Math, actually we didn't do too much math today, for the first 10 minutes the teacher had a very deep discussion about this videogame he used to play called Golden Eye and then some students joined in and it kept going from there. 

When we actually started class we just did a review on some smart factorizations with polynomials and then took a quiz. He said that when we finished the quiz we were dismissed and the quiz was really short so almost everyone just sped through it and we were on our way. 

Today I actually left the house after school because my parents thought I really needed to leave the house every once in a while to get some sunshine so they dragged me to the beach and we stayed there for about an hour before coming back due to my math class at 6:30. 

Oh right, I also watched part of the Trump vs. Biden debate, and boy, it sure was really intense. Really heated debate, actually it was more of an argument with both sides tossing around complaints and accusations to the other candidate but oh well, at least they were using some advanced vocabulary lol. 

Umm, ten minutes till bedtime. Hmm I guess I'll end it here cuz I still gotta brush my teeth and stuff ohh and also I need to wake up a little earlier tomorrow morning for my mom's appointment for a checkup so yeah, cya!

 politically correct

HEYY we're back! Today was sort of a slow day but sometimes you gotta appreciate these days, these unhurried days are occasionally lacking in later stages of life. 

I took my morning classes, English, Spanish, and History. And they were fine too, in English, the teacher gave us a presentation on the parts of an essay, how to identify claims as narrow, broad, or strong, and some patterns of organization of the text. 

The patterns are how the author writes out the text, there's chronological order, where the author writes accordingly in order of time the events took place, then there are compare & contrast, cause & effect, and order of importance. She didn't go too deep into each pattern, just an overview of them for us to get a grasp of what we're going to be writing later on. She also had this one slide with like 50 transition words to use instead of "high-frequency words" like 'and' & 'because'. 

I found one particular word really amusing; albeit, it sounds kinda weird. And the word is "albeit". LOL, basically you can use it to take the place of although, it comes from the Medieval Ages of Middle English, the phrase was originally "all be it", and they mushed it together. 

Also, I think I forgot to mention that the teacher also briefly talked to us how to use semicolons when writing, (which I requested btw, this was not in her original teaching plans), and so I think I pretty much got to point as you see from my sentence with albeit. 

In Spanish we finished the questions from the story that we read last week, didn't take too long and since my last name starts with C then in this class I'm the very first on the list of alphabetical order so I didn't have trouble getting a chance to talk. However, the teacher doesn't always go by alphabetical order, sometimes she mixes it up but today she did and I'm glad she did because the question that I got asked was one that I was more confident about compared to some of the other ones. 

After that we talked about what the story's lesson was, what did the author want the readers to take away from it. Based on what the teacher said, I think that the lesson was "All people, regardless of differences, are still people, and we need to learn to sympathize and feel empathy for them." That concludes Spanish. 

Finally, History. As I mentioned in previous posts, we were divided into groups and each group represented a political party here in Puerto Rico. Today's class was mostly dedicated to coming up with one question to ask a candidate from one of the parties because guess what? THEY'RE GOING TO BE COMING HERE AND ACTUALLY ANSWERING THEM! 

Yup yup, the candidates from all four parties will be joining us on a Google Meet where we will get the chance to actually ask questions to them in real life and receive responses. We needed to make one question per topic so 4 questions in total. Remember how when I told you about the members of my group that there was one girl that didn't show up that day? 

Well, I'm really lucky that she's in my group because her dad used to be the president of one of the parties and he's still a lawyer and politician. She was basically raised in a family super involved with politics and this whole project revolves around politics so we're basically good to go. The teacher said that my questions were not "politically correct" so the teacher said that she could help me with that part which I'm very grateful for. 

Then after class, my dad had me go do some math but for some reason as soon as he started talking about these problems that we were doing my head became really foggy and really heavy. My eyelids were like weights, I was struggling to keep them open for more than a couple seconds at a time. 

Until now, I still don't know what happened there but I told him I needed a break and I slept while he went to go pick up mom from her store. And you know how I feel about mid-day naps. 

Hmm, I think I ought to get more sunshine every day, after all, Vitamin D is a necessary component for our bodies to function healthily. Was it Vitamin D or Vitamin E? I forgot, anyway it was a vitamin that we can only get from the sun and I think I just have Vitamin Sun deficiency and that's what caused my urge to sleep. 

Speaking of sleeping, there are only 3 minutes left till my deadline and thankfully I've already showered and just need to brush my teeth and put in my OK lenses. OH NO ONLY ONE MINUTE LEFT!! BYEEE

 realizations

Today was a productivity day. Or a realization day maybe. 

So I did some math today with my dad and also looked at some old works from kids that used to be here in Puerto Rico and had published papers with my dad before. 

If I hadn't mentioned it already, my dad is a professor at the university so he has all these opportunities that other people would never get the chance to even think about. One kid that I used to know and has now graduated from MIT and Harvard had published a paper with my dad at the age of 15 and he even presented it at a pretty important meeting. 

Another kid presented at the age of 14. WOW, and she also got an offer from MIT. However, he said, it isn't enough to just have him as a resource, these kids also did a whole lot of work and preparation before they finally accomplished what they had set out to do. 

So, perhaps if I work hard enough, I'll get a chance like this too and maybe even publish MORE than one paper. Maybe two, maybe three? It's all possible with the corresponding time and effort. 

You know, I remember last year that one kid in my grade was saying how he wasn't trying too much in school now since middle school grades don't count towards college and that he'll start actually trying when we get to high school. Well, why wait? What's the point in waiting? 

I've often asked myself that same question and as I'm struggling to come up with an answer time passes me by. And the question dissipates into thin air as I forget about it. But now since I have it right in front of me I'm going to quote someone. Napoleon Hill, a very famous American author once said, "Don't wait. The time will NEVER be just right." 

And I agree, don't wait for some miracle to appear, don't wait for something to come and do the work for you, don't wait because by waiting you're giving time a head start and time will not sympathize for you when it runs past you. It won't even give you a second glance before it leaves you in the dust still regretting that decision to wait. So why wait? 

Another writer, Suzy Kassem once said, "Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will." I believe that's also true. People doubt themselves, they think they're not enough, they think they aren't ready, they think they're going to face embarrassment, they think they're going to fail, yet just by thinking that they're going to fail. They've already fallen, defeated by their own thoughts rather than an actual attempt at success. 

One try at success, even if it results in failure, is better than none. And now I'm going to bed, following the sun. boom ending the day off with a rhyme. Just so tomorrow I can get into my prime. Wake up early, rise with the sun. And then, give it all we got during the run. good night

virtual dilemma

So to be perfectly honest here, I didn't do too much today. 

I kinda lounged around in the morning and talked with some friends like Dino and played chess with them. I won all the games I played and those games last a lot longer than if we were face to face because it takes more time to write in the move you wish to play and then also the 2D board isn't what I'm used to. 

Nevertheless, chess is still pretty fun and I also hope that the chess club stays intact. I'll need to ask Toro on that later. Hmm what else, oh right not too much action on stocks today since the market is closed on weekends. 

Then in the afternoon, I went to pick up my mom from her store, and then shortly after we went to SuperMax to get some groceries. Now, I feel like wearing a mask doesn't bother me at all, and seeing other people wearing them feels normal too. I guess after a certain amount of time anything can become the new usual. So we bought some food and then brought them back to our apartment which is like a 5-minute walk from the supermarket. 

After dinner, some kids from my grade including Psi, Rama, Dino, Tom, and Beam got together to play this game that's really trendy right now called Among Us. Perhaps you've heard of it but basically, it's kinda like Murder Mystery where there are killers hiding with regular people and you need to find and vote out who you think is the killer. 

The thing is, I feel like playing this game really hurts my relationship with my friends because everyone is constantly suspicious of others and I feel like this game is just about exploiting people's trust so personally, I'm not too much of a fan of this game. 

However, if you're not playing with friends then maybe it won't matter as much but then when you're supposed to discuss you need to do it through text and that's not really convenient especially if you're not a fast typer. 

Hmm so right now I don't really know what to do on this matter because like everyone seems to like playing it but then again everyone is so on-edge when we play which I don't like at all. So we have a dilemma on our hands. If you have any suggestions please PLEASE tell me. 

Mhm, so I think I might go to bed a bit earlier today to rest up for tomorrow. Today was supposed to be my free day and tomorrow isn't so I might be hitting the books tomorrow. bye

 destructive naps

So I don't got too much time to write today, only about 15 minutes but I'll see what I can do. 

OHH I remembered something, today I took a nap. 

A mid-day nap and it was like two hours. I NEVER TAKE MID-DAY NAPS, and somehow today it just happened. Now you might be wondering why do I dislike taking naps during the day so much?

First of all, they just devour your day-time. You close your eyes and then open them, and now half the day is over! WOW, it's very destructive. Another thing is, when you wake up from them it feels like you're even MORE tired than you were before and how is that possible? Frankly, I have no idea but its verity I can confirm. 

Then after I woke up from my nap, I did part of my project for history, and it took about an hour and a half to finish it completely, and then my phone started getting some notifications. Psi and Toro were talking in a group chat saying how one of their group members turned in his part of the project late and yes, that's the part I was doing at that moment! 

So I started panicking and so I quickly finished up the entire thing and turned it in as fast as I could but at that point, it had already been two hours past the due date that the website was showing me. Still thinking that there was some hope left I wrote to the teacher asking if there was a specific time that the part of the project was due today and how I didn't recall hearing her saying any precise time and only that its due Friday. 

Then I apologized for my tardiness and that I'm sorry if I didn't hear her when she was telling us about it, but to be honest I really don't think she said anything. Then, in the end, I added "thanks for your understanding". And well she still hasn't responded yet so I guess I'll need to wait to see what's going to happen with that. 

Oh yea, BIG NEWS coming up! My parents opened a REAL stock account! and guess what, I get to manage it. Yes, you heard that right. MOI!! 

So at the moment, I haven't bought into anything yet and I'm thinking of first researching a bit first before investing in a random company that I know nothing about because that's nothing more than gambling. And Jerry doesn't DO gambling. 

Ah wait, right now I DO have one stock in my portfolio, it's a free stock that Robinhood, (the trading platform), gave us for free when we join. It's not worth much, only 3 dollars, but I guess it's something. And today it actually went up 15 cents lol which is like 4%. Not bad. I'm planning on selling it very soon though, after all, I know nothing about it. 

And that leaves me with only a mere 7 minutes on the clock till midnight, and my phone's expiration date mdr, (in case you don't remember that's French slang for lol), so I better get going. BYEEE

long weekend

YAY THURSDAY DOWN, LOOONG WEEKEND HERE I COME! 

Mhm yup, our school said that tomorrow was going to be off for us because of this "professional development" that is going to be taking place. 

Anyways, first class we had Physics and again we were divided into groups. I guess my group was ok, one member just didn't talk at all but the other two were helping. We got to choose roles so I became leader, and well our note-taker wasn't talking at all so our speaker became note-taker as well. Yea the point is we got the work done at the end and it's all good.

Next, Music. So this class nothing really happened in those very short 25 minutes. The only thing that really did happen was my negotiation with the new student that changed classes. Well he's not new to the school I actually know him from before but my point is that he's new to the class and we both wanted the last turn of the class. 

There are three turns for three students, each is 25 minutes as 80 divided by 3 is 26 something and the teacher just wanted to make it 25. In the end, I let him have the last turn but in exchange, I get the 5 extra minutes from the 80 minutes. So the first turn is 25 min, my turn is 30 min, and the last turn is also 25 min. So yeah, at least I get a tiny bit more class time even though my break time isn't as long as theirs. 

And then PE! We took a short quiz on fitness components, (pretty sure I aced it btw), and then we were split up into groups once again to make workout routines depending on the type that we were assigned. 

My group got Cardiovascular exercises and because we were the first group we also needed to add an additional warm-up to our routine. How it was going to happen was, each person of each group presents one or two exercises of that type, and then the class has to do that exercise along with whoever is presenting. 

The worst part is, every kid thinks that they need to do a hard exercise or else the teacher will give them less points so they choose the most difficult ones in their type. AND THEN EVERYONE CHOOSES THE HARDEST ONES AND THE WHOLE ROUTINE IS AWFULLY HARD! yeah basically, and I'm also part of this group I happened to choose 45 seconds of burpees LOL and after we did it Psi and Rama complained to me. 

However, right after my group finished the next group came and guess what, ONE MINUTE OF PUSH-UPS. wow. just wow. I immediately regretted the burpees that I just did because I got tired too early on which made the rest of the exercises seem even more tiring. 

At least, when I finally finished the whole thing and took a nice refreshing shower I was in an awesome mood because I only had one final relaxing class left until the long-awaited weekend. 

Speaking of which, we're now in Algebra! And we start off with... A very boring review of last class and a presentation on primes and composite numbers and how to find then using factorization of polynomials. Like 2^537 - 1 is divisible by 7. no kidding it really is. 

So yeah, nothing much in math and we're done. LETS GOOOO, I still have one whoooole hour before my bed time so no need to rush the prepare for bed routine. byeee!

group project

Ah today was pretty flat. 

First class was English, look it was so flat that I think I've almost completely forgotten what we did in English today. OHH yeah we reviewed some answers from that worksheet we did the other day, you know from the very long english class the day before yesterday. 

Umm we also took some notes off this powerpoint the teacher had prepared but it was easy stuff. Yeah, that's it for English today. 

In Spanish, we read the story, so BOOM my prediction two days back was on point, and then we did part of the questions and discussed. This teacher has constantly been repeating that we won't be having any big tests so we shouldn't wait around for them and expect them to raise our grade. 

She says, your grade depends on what you do TODAY! So yeah, her words really moved me and I went all out on the questions today. Out of the four questions, I answered two of them and I mean considering that there are like 18 kids in the class I'd say that's a lot. 

Then final class, History. So in this class the first thing the teacher did was announce that we had a group project worth 100 points. I'm in a group with this one kid who doesn't understand things very quickly and another kid who just didn't show up today. I think I can work with this though. 

Today we didn't need to do any of the research and the teacher gave us a small extension due to our teammate's absence. I still need to get in touch with her though. 

Then we need to annotate this article related to our topic and answer questions on a worksheet, then turn it in on friday. AHHH so tomorrow's gonna be a busy day. Guess I gotta get ready for it then. byee

check the units jerry

So, we're a bit tight on schedule today, only 25 min to get this done and also shower and all that preparing to bed stuff. 

Today first class we had was Physics, real sad that 5 minutes into the class the electricity went out, luckily my parents were prepared so like three weeks earlier they had changed data plans and companies so that the their hotspot was a lot stronger. 

The data plan that they were using before had "unlimited" data but the signal was super weak because we live in a kinda sorta remote area considering how remote an area can be when it's in the metropolitan area. 

The point is, now, as long as their phone has battery then I can use their hotspot to get on google meet and continue to take my classes despite having no electricity or internet. I only wish that they had bought this before like during when the camp was still going on so that we didn't have to drive all the way to Burger King to get a good signal. Anyways, gotta be grateful for what you have right? 

Thanks to the hotspot, I was able to go right back into the meet after like 2 minutes of disconnection which is fine since they can't cover too much in that time. 

We reviewed the quiz we took from last time, the one where I said I had gotten one question wrong? Well, it was a true and false problem and they gave you a graph with position and time, CLEARLY, the slope was 1/2 and it was true and false if the velocity was 8.33333 so of course, I answered false. 

LITTLE DID I KNOW, the units on the graph were not in meters, they were in KILOMETERS!! AHHHH so yeah, I messed up on that one but at least I got the rest right. 

OK moving on, in music, somehow another kid changed his elective and he is now in my music class so instead of two students there's now three. Do you know what this means? Before I had half the class with the teacher, now I only get 1/3!! That's no fair, arghhh jeez why'd you have to change classes? 

Ah well during my very short class the teacher just told me how I'm going to start playing this piece that does have a piano part written out. He gave me the flute part, and he gave me the electric bass part. The flute was going to be my right hand, and the electric bass my left. wow. 

I need to look at two separate sheets of music just to play one measure. oh well, at least it doesn't seem too hard of a piece. 

I ate a good meal and then it was time for PE! YAyy... yeah, we did a cardio workout and it wasn't fun. 

Finally, we had Algebra! The most relaxing class of the day, he explained some problems on the binomial theorem and we took a quiz. That's it! 

Of course, I aced the quiz but to be honest, the class average was 94% so basically everyone got a 100%. 

Maybe a couple kids used calculators but oh well, not my problem that they're gonna fail when we get back to actual school. 

So yeah, only 5 minutes left til my deadline so I gotta hurry. cya!

long english

Today was Day 2 from last week. So that means, I took three classes. English, Spanish, and then History. 

In English, when we first went into the Google Meet the teacher said that we were going to be trying something new and that it was going to be "different" than before. 

So in the text, and yes we're still on that, there were two characters that were kind of polar opposites of each other in terms of behavior, and every student in the class was either assigned character 1 or character 2. 

Then depending on the character you had a worksheet filled with questions about that character and you needed to finish it in I forgot how many minutes she gave us. Every four people with the same character got split into a breakout room and then we needed to discuss the answers for each question. In my group, I had the girl that I said wasn't bad at writing and a kid who's not too good at listening, and a popular girl that doesn't really do anything. 

I tried to include the other two but they didn't unmute when I asked them to share their thoughts on one of the given questions. So when the teacher came in the breakout room to check up on our group the only ones that were talking were me and the writing girl. The bad listening kid and the popular girl just had camera and microphone off so the teacher just shook her head looking disappointed and left the meet. 

Then when the time was up we had only finished half of the given problems and the teacher started saying that only one group was doing it as she said, in every other group either no one was saying anything, or it was just between two people so I think on that one she was referring to us. 

The point is, she said, if we don't discuss the way she wanted us to then we just WEREN'T going to do it. And the teacher said, "Does anyone want to change my mind?" 

OK, I know what you're thinking, Jerry is totally gonna say something here, but no at that time I froze and just missed the chance. So the teacher was like, "OK then, if no one is going to say anything then I guess this means that no one wants discussions anymore, ok sure we can do it that way." Ouch. 

So then like 10 minutes later the teacher said, "so are all of you fine with working individually from now on?" Beam nodded his head and the teacher was like, "OH I see that Beam is fine with it, you prefer working along Beam?" Beam responded, "yeah I think I do prefer working alone better, I guess it's a personal choice." 

And then another girl said that she liked working in groups better so that if you miss out on a certain point, the other members of your group can maybe help you cover that and you can also see in different perspectives. 

So since they had distinct views on working in groups or alone this is where I stepped in. "good morning miss, i have something to add. I think both opinions are valid, yes by working alone you can work with more efficiency and more concentration but with a group you can cover more perspectives and also learn some teamwork skills that we're going to have to need eventually. However, in groups it's not fair to have some people do all the work and have other people just take other people's credit, what you SHOULD do is build off of what other people think and make it into your own. But when you work alone you need to work quicker, faster, without other people giving you their opinions so there's a chance that you'll miss some points of view. Therefore, I think a combination of the two would give us the best outcome and results, what do you think miss?" 

Well of course I didn't say it EXACTLY like that because I don't have a memory that I can write all of it down verbatim (membean word) but I DID say a lot more than the other two. 

Then after some silence the teacher finally spoke and said, "Here's what's gonna happen, the next time if you want to discuss you can head on into breakout room 1 and if you don't then just work on it yourself." I guess it's fair, and apparently so did everyone else because no one opposed. That's basically it for English and MAN I wrote too much didn't I. Well, the other classes were pretty boring. 

Spanish, read a new story, reviewed last time's questions, and copied down new questions. 

History, annotated a HUGE powerpoint and then discussed the material. See? Nothing fun. 

Ok then, I guess I'll leave you there then. CYA!

 "Key to Hearts"

Mhm so I mostly passed today at home. But you know what I did do? I finished the poem, well I finished basically all of the poem yesterday, today I just got all the parts in order and added some finishing touches. So, as I promised you folks, here it is. And I call it "Key to Hearts":

Ket to Hearts, by: Jerry Chen

HEY HOW ARE YOU MY BEAN

OH CANARY, you’re a queen!

You and your stuffies and bunnies

You’re all my best buddies!

 

You’re the BRIGHTEST star in the sky!

You shine so bright yet still so shy

Yet you shine upon mankind

WOW! You are definitely one-of-a-kind

Doesn’t matter that you’re weird or shy

You’ll always be the brightest star in my sky!

 

Radiating warmth and kindness into every room

Making people feel so nice, they assume

That you’re an angel that just waltzed past!

And now they believe in miracles at last!

 

It was pure luck that brought us here,

Quite far, but it seems oh so near

Our friendship is most certainly real

Feels like we’ve given our Achilles’ heel

However, people can sometimes be blind

Don’t let their words bind and keep you confined

Their thoughts and actions don’t make you defined

You need to stand for yourself and your beliefs combined

 

As you see, at times life is sad but at least it’s true

Facades and mirages, it can sure make one blue

Ah no matter because I’ve got you!

And don’t worry because you’ve got me too

 

People say nothing gold can stay

Yet you always brighten up my day!

Bring a big wide smile to my face

With your undeniably clumsy grace!

 

Now listen closely as this is often the forgotten key

And remember what I’m about to say very firmly

“True friends are NEVER apart

Maybe in distance, but never in heart”

SO FOLKS, what do you think? Work from a professional poet? Hmm, close enough. Maybe I'll get better as I continue writing more and more poems. But this one, this one is dedicated to YOU Canary! Have a wonderful rest of the night! cyaaa

 

 

drive-in cinema

OK, today was a pretty packed day. 

First thing in the morning I woke up and my mom told me that I was going to be going to her store today since they were going to be fixing a loose pipe in the bathroom there. They both needed to be in the back so I had to be in the front of the store, greeting the customers, doing the sales, you know like a normal employee. but, the JERRY version of an employee. 

Just like an employee but enhanced on all fronts. Yeah, sounds awesome doesn't it. So after making some monmons at the store we left after eating some sandwiches from this fast food restaurant that my dad bought us. They were actually better than expected, so yeah if you're ever hungry feel free to try some new restaurants out. Who knows, sometimes they can amaze you. 

Soon after, we got home and then today was there was an event happening, organized and coordinated by our school so I went with Dino. He came to pick me up and Rama was already with him, now together the three of us went over to the Mall of San Juan where the drive-in cinema was. 

So this mall is like the super fancy mall here, not that many people actually shop here though because all of the stores are like super high quality and the prices are EXTREMELY high compared to other stores that sell the same thing. 

Anyways, the movie we saw today was "Now You See Me" it's a pretty old movie I think and I've seen the movie before haha there's even a part two, like a sequel and I watched that one too LOL. 

Nevertheless, it was still worth it to come to the movie today because first of all, I got to see actual human beings hahaha and at least say hi to a couple of them and secondly I got to hang out with some friends too. Like Rama, Psi, Beam, Dino of course lol, and Fox came too. I think almost everyone from the whole grade showed up so it was a good decision to come today, you know be involved in these big events and with your class. 

Also during my quite boring time at the store today, Canary kept me from feeling lonely and talked to me very mucho which I really do appreciate and I'm grateful for you Canary. I think your poem should be finished by tomorrow, hope you like it! 

I only have ten minutes before my deadline and I still gotta shower and all that so I'll cya tomorrow!!

quotes and poems

Today I'm not going to talk too much about school because the classes were really really short. 

OK, after classes I played some piano, my music teacher gave me a pointer that on one of my pieces, the Elegy one, I should play it as if every few phrases were a wave. Like a slow wave, crashing onto the shores of a beach. 

Actually, now that I think about it I think that's how it's meant to be played because the title IS called Elegy for victims of tsunamis so maybe the waves are an actual thing when the composer wrote the song. So yes, I think that pointer really helped me to interpret the piece and the score. 

Then I've also been getting into writing some poems. You know, the rhymes and the flow are super entertaining to write and you get an absolutely amazing feeling of gratification when you read your finished work. Recently I'm working on a poem for Canary since she's literally written two for me already and I think it's time that I write her something in return. 

It's still a work in progress but I might showcase it later on. 

Hmm, then I did quite a lot of math today, like almost 3 hours I think. Mostly like irrational roots, applying Vieta's and some other stuff. 

The only thing we did for points in school today was the Physics quiz we had on graphing. It was 10 questions and I really don't understand why but somehow I got one question wrong, I will be sure to ask him about it on Tuesday. 

Did you notice how I said TUESDAY and not Monday? Well guess what, THEY CHANGED THE SCHEDULES AGAINNN

At least it wasn't too large of a change this time around, they just changed what used to be Mondays and Wednesdays to be Tuesdays and Thursdays and vice versa but they kept Friday's schedule intact so we're still going to be having like 20-minute classes every Friday. 

Also, searching up cool quotes is a new hobby of mine. There are some really good ones that I think I can just bust out one of these days in a situation that suits the right one and everyone will be wowed at my blinding awesomeness. Yes, sounds great doesn't it. Well, guess what? You can do it TOO!! 

Just search up "[insert adjective] quotes" on google and a ton will show up, click the one you're most interested in and Ta-DA! you've got yourself a bunch of quotes that you can see and you can remember a few of the ones you really like.

OK, I think my time for today is up, byeee and have a great night

time is of the essence

Aaaaaand it's Thursday. 

It feels as if it were just an hour ago that I was here writing my blog from yesterday. Struggling on what to write, what to say, what to do. Today passed by like a flash too. Why does it seem like I just teleported from yesterday to right now? 

We started off with English. The topic we first talked about was the difference between a central idea and a theme. A theme is the moral of the story, the lesson, what the author wishes to teach the reader. The central idea is more specific to the story itself, more unique than the theme. Then we reread another section of the story that we've been on forever now and did 13 questions on them. 

This time I think my group did a fine job at discussing and we were only missing the final question unanswered when she called time but all the other groups were nowhere close to done so we got the farthest. 

Honestly, I feel like I use "well" and "so" a little too much whenever I write these blogs or just when chatting with friends so I think I am going to try and watch out for those two words. Finally, we discussed like half of the questions before time ran out.

Spanish - Ah nothing like a Spanish class to get you all tensed up. We read a whole new story that I've never seen before which made the whole experience EXTRA scary. 

At least, I think I got what the whole story was about, at least enough for me to answer all the questions she gave out in class. She also gave us new vocabulary words that we need to write sentences with tomorrow so I am NOT looking forward to that.

At last, History. 

The teacher divided us into groups, and I was really lucky that I got in a group with Fox, as I said, the teacher doesn't know we're close friends, YET. And then we also had the girl that I said was good at writing in my English class like 6 posts back I think. 

Anyways, she gave us an article and a worksheet and we had to annotate the article and then discuss among our groups and then at the end finish the entire worksheet as a group and hand it in before 6 o clock. I had a science bowl at 2:30, so I stayed with them until 2:30 even though class ended at 1:40 LOLLL. but yeah, it all worked out, I think we'll get a perfect on this worksheet. That's great. 

Time is up guys, guess I'll catch you all later.

communication is key

OK, I think I got plenty of time today. 

Well, kinda 45 minutes, but yesterday it took like 40 minutes to write and then I still needed to shower and prepare to sleep so very sadly, I passed the 11 o clock mark. And my phone was very sadly taken away. I'm a bit out of topics to write about today. 

School, sure I'm sorry but today's blog might be a boring one. 

Physics, nothing much, a very long lab on a website about position vs. time graphs and that's it. 

Then following up in Music, just played some of the waltz and I'm starting to get the hang of it now. He also gave me some like basic knowledge on danzas and some Latin music for example melodies that are played a ton in songs and stuff like that. 

In PE, actually, this is probably the best class today. Why? Because we barely did any exercise. YAYY also we were assigned into groups where we had to do a 5 slide PowerPoint on a topic that she gave us in 25 minutes. 

Luckily I had Rama in my group and two other people who did a share of the work at least so I was good to go. Or so I thought. Then we kinda got a bit distracted with the colors, decorations, and title slide picture that we kinda didn't get any actual content in at the 10-minute mark. 

So then I started panicking. I got out like three websites and combined with my own knowledge started speed typing like crazy. I did two of the 5 slides, Rama and the others each did 1. And then on what was supposed to be Rama's slide, he had written this very complex definition of communication, (our given topic), and it was complex to the point that there were words on these that I didn't know the meaning of. Anyways, I thought that he knew what he was writing but when we actually got to present, and we reached that slide, he said, "Mr. Chen?" I was like WHATT this is supposed to be YOUR slide! 

But, of course, I didn't say it out loud, it was going ok when I was presenting because he wrote out everything I had to say onto the slide so I just read aloud what he had written, until that is, I got to the word I didn't know. 

Then I was like, "Rama what does this word mean?" and to not make us look bad I said, "OK class, this is an example of bad communication." AND IT WORKED because the teacher apparently said that we needed to include a scenario of the topic and we didn't even know so we got the points on accident lool. The fluke actually saved us. 

Then, finally in Algebra, we learned synthetic division yay. Simpler way of dividing polynomials when the divisor is a linear binomial. so, I only have THREE MINUTES LEFT SO I GTG CYA.

 oh, not so boring after all

What to talk about today. 

Hmm, so I met this really amazing girl... on Instagram. And I know that people say, ahh meeting people online isn't good, they could scam you or be fake, blah blah blah. 

However, I disagree, yes there are indeed a very small group of people who do this but to be honest, a lot of the people there are really awesome. Here, let's take this girl, for example, I will call her Canary for you know, anonymity. Canary, she's a year above me, 10th grade and well I've never met her before but we've talked on Instagram for a few days now and she's pretty umm, she's very pretty. Yeahh, also whenever I chat with her I feel like there's an endless amount of things to talk about, you never go dry on topics. Yup, definitely a keeper. Umm, perhaps I will resume this part for another day and quickly summarize my oh so boring schoolday first because I'm sure NONE of you are interested in the topic at hand anyway... right?

Ok, so first thing in the morning, sat down on my seat with a glass of milk in hand and logged into the Google Meet where the English teacher was already waiting. Today we reviewed the tips and steps for how to integrate quotes into your writing and we also practiced a little, and yes we're still not done with that one reading. 

Anyways, ohh rightttt, remember Tom?? From my group? Well, he left the entire school for now and he's now taking online classes at someplace else probably because his parents thought it wasn't too worth it to pay the exact same amount of money for online classes rather than actual classes. 

So now, my group is just me, and three other girls. ahhhh, not that I have anything against girls but since they're all girls they just talk amongst themselves and leave me out of the GROUP which is something we definitely do not want. Luckily, at least one of the girls realize how fantabulous I am and how much they relied on me before so at least I wasn't being ignored anymore. However, getting them to actually talk ABOUT the questions we needed to do was a lot harder, oof I forgot how hard it was to get members of your group motivated and willingly working. 

Plus, I wasn't even CEO here so I had less power. Less control I guess, over the whole group and the flow of our progress. oh no, I'm getting a little carried away here, well I guess I'll leave English here for now. 

Moving on, nooo, we're at Spanish. So, those analyzation questions, thank god I did them before class with Fox because I really doubt that I would've gotten anything done in those mere minutes that she allotted for us to complete them. 

Also, when we started discussing the answers to the questions she got me really scared when she said, if you don't participate, you're not getting any points. HUH? There was no way I was letting my hard work go down the drain so I tried to snatch every opportunity I could get. I raised my hand for literally 3 questions in a row, and keep in mind that more than one person can discuss the same question, and she didn't even call on me. And then she gave another warning about how no participation = no puntos. 

WOW, that's when I realized I had to resort to drastic measures. That's right ladies and gentlemen, it was time to open, THE MIC. 

Usually, when she says ok let's see who can answer this question, she looks up from her little notebook where she keeps tabs on everyone to see who has their hand raised, but this time I didn't wait no more. I couldn't, it was the second to last question and I hadn't participated once yet. 

"Quien me puede dar la respuesta para pregunta #4?" "JERRY!!!", I screamed. See what I did there? Integrated a quote into my writing heh heh. 

The point is she finally saw me and called on me so I got my hard-earned points. ahh my heart was still pounding but at least it was over. Ah, then finally we reached the relaxing class. 

History, there were still kids who hadn't presented their tour so as soon as the class started the presentations began. Um, I confess that I didn't pay TOO much attention to the presentations because nothing really caught my attention, their monotone tones of voice, and overused attractions, it was complete humdrum (membean word, and yes membean is backkkk!). 

So yeah, after presentations finished we needed to compose a paragraph on why we think learning about the attractions on our island is necessary and then we had to react to two other paragraphs that other kids in our class wrote. (OH, now's the time to introduce another of my friends. He's a big fan of anime, and plays soccer, and hangs out with us a lot. We will call him, Dino.) And then she coughs and says, Jerry you are not allowed to react to Rama's or Jean's or Dino's paragraph. 

WOAH, I had no idea how she knew that we were friends but however she did it, I'm impressed. I'm not sure how she got Jean tho, we're not thaaat close but the other two yea. 

Anyways, apparently, she didn't know that Fox is another one of my close friends and my debate partner is in the class too so I had no problemo haha. 

Yup, I will end this monster of a blog here, in the end it turned out not so boring after all, anyways, good night everyone. 

 Graphs again

And back to school again.

Hmm, so I was thinking of writing some very personal information onto here but since this is a public website and the person I mention could very well be reading at this very moment. So well I have decided to hold off for a little bit. 

Ok, so schoolwise, things are going pretty swell. 

Physics, talked about position vs. time graphs. Time is always on the x-axis because x is the independent variable that cannot be manipulated while the y-axis is dependent upon the x-axis. Then we did some examples on Jamboard, this thing google made where you are given like a lot of whiteboards and you can write on them and save them for future reference too. 

Anyways, moving on to Music. I told him about me trying to play Waltz in A Minor and since he's a percussionist when I had a question about what a trill was and how to play it he didn't really know too well either so we looked into it together which I think is really great of him. El Coqui, the danza he gave me, I think that I should probably look into that one as well since he wants me to play it at Noche Puertorriquena which I forgot which month it was but it's not TOO far away.

PE, we did this really cool workout where she drew cards out from a deck of playing cards and we did the corresponding exercises based on which card she pulled out. So we were exercising with a bit of uncertainty in it which made the whole thing a lot more fun. 

Finally, Algebra. Nothing happened. Literally, nothing, expanding binomials and that's it. Pascal's triangle, binomial theorem, yup yup easy stuff. And took it all down like it was hot. 

K then, gtg to bed. cya

Full house

Ok, running a teeny tiny bit late on time today. 

I just did a whole lot of typing so I think I should be able to just power through this blog like a jet-powered lawnmower. 

Today is Sunday, the last day before a whole school cycle again. 

Hmm, I'm trying to learn this new song on the piano, it's by Chopin, Waltz in A Minor, it's really one of his simpler songs but even though the notes aren't written with that much complexity, the meaning is quite deep. Profound, one might say. 

Hmm, I did some math, mostly problems on CRT, Chinese Remainder Theorem. I've looked over it before, but today it was more in-depth and I did more problems on it. 

Then my mom also went to her store today, usually, on Sundays there are most people because more people are allowed to go out of their houses on Sundays. I went to pick her up in the afternoon, and there were tons of restaurants that had more people then compared to before the whole pandemic. 

Really. I know it's quite unbelievable but I saw it with my own eyes, restaurants had people even waiting outside for seats and on the inside all of the seats were full. A full house. 

jeez calm down people, it's not like you could die if you don't eat at Chilli's for a month or two. 

Anyways, I think things are starting to slowly come back to normal. Perhaps, soon school will be back. I guess we'll have to see. 

Catch ya later, cya

yes i PASSED!!

A bit late on time today folks. 

I had the math training thing again, this time it was on Number Theory, Bezout's and Fermat's little theorem were like the first things we covered so it was a super fast-paced class. 

Then after class, Psi and I had to participate in a ninja.io tournament. This was within a clan so kinda exclusive but since they were doing duos we decided to join in. 

We are kinda like retired, haven't played in like 2 months and in this game, if you don't play for two weeks you're already really rusty because like all the controls and movements need to be honed through constant usage and repetition. 

Anyways, even though the gods are retired we still destroy, at the end, we won our match by 10 points. So the gods are back in business. 

Then oh right about that interview, guess what. I PASSED!! Let's gooo so basically when I got in the zoom meeting I was a little weirded out since there were like 4 other people there. Then the interviewer said that it was going to be a "group interview" and well I've never seen any of those before so I didn't know what to expect. 

I had prepared like two poems and a whole speech in Mandarin to show my prowess but the whole interview was in English so I really didn't have the place to use any of it. 

The "tests" to see our level at Chinese were also pretty simple, she just said phrases or sentences in English and asked us to translate it into Chinese. Easy stuff for me since I translate stuff to my mom all the time. 

Like an hour or an hour and a half after the interview ended, they sent me a message notifying me of my acceptance. So that's great, now I have a steady place to gain community service hours even during quarantine, and plus it's gonna be great since I can teach English to kids that I've never met or seen before. 

Meeting new people is always exciting for me and especially during this period where you barely get to see anyone besides your own family. 

Great stuff huh, ok then time is running out, gotta rush to bed now cya. wow i thought I pressed publish last night but apparently, it didn't work so im going to publish it rn

 Interview

Today was the first Friday that we had with this "new schedule" thing so we take all the classes but only 25 minutes for each one. After taking attendance there's basically only 20 so there isn't really all that much time to learn anything new. 

So really, every Friday will be kinda a really chillax and free day. I do have this Spanish thing that the teacher said she will give us 5 minutes in class to finish but I don't wanna wait until that time so I'm going to find a time in the weekend to do it. Probably only take around 15 minutes. 

So after finishing classes, I explained some problems to Psi and my other friend, let's take the time and name him now, I will call him Toro. Real cool guy. 

Anyways Toro is in the same class as Psi and they both had some qualms (membean word) about the homework assigned in geometry. They changed the whole curriculum but you know me being me and all that, I could still explain it to them but you know in geometry there are lots of different ways to solve the same problem so perhaps the way that  I'm showing them isn't the one the teacher is gonna show in class. So after I explained it to them the jerry way. 

Then I did a bit of math and tomorrow I have an interview with an organization called BOP for short, Bloom Outreach Program is the full thing. 

It's basically teaching kids in China English, and as you already know I'm fluent in both languages so that's cool. The interview is tomorrow night at 8 so wish me luck.

 best project is yourself

Three class day today.

First, we had English, instead of moving on to another thing we are rereading the text so we can understand it at another level, one that is more in-depth. So this time instead of reading like 5 pages at a time it's only 2, and instead of 4 questions, there were 7. See how she's giving more questions for fewer words? I assume that's what in-depth is. Understand more in less. 

The problems weren't that hard but she only gave us little time for them so my group only really finished writing out 4 of them and we were the group that was most ahead on writing when she called time and everyone came back to discuss as an entire class. I helped out a little at the end, answered a question on my own because usually it's two or three people at a time, and the class basically finished off with a final question about the text, individual this time. 

Then Spanish, today we first did the quote thing, the meaning was "The best project in your life is yourself." It makes sense doesn't it, we can work really hard on something but after some time it won't matter anymore, like a 7-day tour of Puerto Rico, after a certain amount of time who needs it anymore. But when you work on yourself, it will stay with you for the rest of your life, your experiences, your knowledge, your intelligence, and everything that makes you who you are. 

Then we read this excerpt from a book in our textbooks and we had to write a summary about it. It's about this historical figure in his prison cell when the assistant of his lawyer comes to visit him to bring bad news. They might not be able to win the case and grant him clemency because they found evidence in the historical guy's diaries. The historical figure didn't react, didn't talk, didn't move, just stood there until he was escorted back to his cell and he sat thinking about how he hated his lawyer who not only lost the case but didn't even have the nerve to come to deliver the news himself. 

And that's about it for the chapter, I mean it was only two pages. Obviously, there were more details like the place and time and tones and stuff but you don't need to know any of that. 

Finally, in History, we just listened to the people presenting their Google Earth tour to the class. I didn't get to go because of the time restraints but the teacher agreed to let me go first tomorrow. 

Yeah, then I took my AoPS class, learned about irrationals, radical conjugates, and worked on some problems regarding them. And at the start of class, we worked through the very well known proof of why the square root of 2 is irrational. Proof by contradiction. 

Yeah about it. cya

Hump DAYYY

Today's classes were pretty boring. 

Physics we talked about free fall, I had already learned the formula so I looked at it as more of a review but I did learn some terminology like acceleration due to gravity, apparently, that's a specific phrase that you're supposed to use when an object is only prone to gravity and no other forces like friction and air resistance. 

Then we did a lab thing, which is just watching a video of an amusement park ride the one where you go up and is kinda sorta like a free fall and analyze if it actually is. Spoiler alert, it's not. Anyways, analyzation questions were assigned for homework, and then that's all there is to Physics today. 

Then Music, some reading of a Danza that the teacher sent me called "El Coqui" which is the frog that is endemic to our island, and yeah I told him that I would try it out.

In PE my electricity went out so then again I had to go to my neighbor and ask to borrow their phone to call up Psi since we were literally about to present and we had all the lines and order sorted out until the power went out. AHHH dumb power grid, always losing electricity at the worst times. 

And you know what's even worse, the electricity came back just before the workout so I didn't miss even a minute of the workout so yea, great stuff. 

Then finally in Algebra, we did a review of the homework and other problems that basically took up the entire class because some students kept on asking questions about it and this teacher is nice enough to take the time to clear up any doubts and questions. 

He also played this hilarious video of a camel talking since it's Wednesday or HUMP DAYYYY. the point is he was singing along with it and it was just so funny. You can search it up on youtube, just put hump day, and I'm fairly sure that it'll be the first one to come up.

So at the end we had like 15 minutes to complete a short assessment on Quizziz, it was 8 questions but for one of them the teacher had marked the wrong answer correct on accident and that made me sort of panic since one question wrong and my score on that quiz would've been an 87% and we definitely don't want that. But at the end the teacher decided to just delete that question so the kids that got it right don't get the points and the kids that got it wrong don't lose the points. It's not a bad decision to make since there were people from both sides and the teacher has to try to be the mediator. 

Wow, I am typing at godspeed right now because it is currently 10:38 and I have to get to bed by 11 or my phone will be taken away for 48 hours straight. damn. 

SO yeah, I will see you all tomorrow. BYEE

new schedule

Schoolday today. 

They changed up the schedule which is basically just moving the days from Tuesday through Friday up one day, so what used to be Tuesday is now Monday and what used to be Wednesday is now Tuesday. And for Friday it's similar to what used to be Monday but they made all of the classes shorter and my mom is not happy about it. 

So today was Tuesday so I had English, Spanish, and History. 

In English, we finished some reading and discussion questions from the text, and then the teacher talked about how to make an effective argument.

Then in Spanish, we finished off the presentations. So remember how I said the teacher made it that you can literally steal points from the presenting group if they made some sort of mistake? Well, when I presented this girl stole a lot of points and today she presented so I caught the opportunity and took some of the points back from her. So maybe in the long term, I'll end up with a fine grade again. 

Finally, in History, I perfected the script, added all the routes, and also pictures to the google earth pins because apparently that was needed. Then after class, I got in a call with Rama and Psi and we did some math together and also talked a little. 

Also, did I mention that I've gotten a lot better at playing that piece, the Elegy for Victims of Earthquakes and Tsunamis? The first page is like done and the second page is half done but I can't find the third page anymore so I think I'm going to have to print out a new one to finish the piece. 

Yeah, that's about it for today. cya tomorrow. 

 dull day

Today was pretty dull ngl. I spent most of the day working on the geography project hoping to finish nearly all of it if not everything. 

Description, script, routes, there's just too much to cover. Oh and the script wow, that took the longest. 

I searched online for how long a 500-word essay should take. They say 1 hour and 40 minutes. Let's just say that I took an hour and 20 because I'm a quick typer and a fast writer. 

When I wrote my last word on my script today it ended at 2050 words, and no I did not type one more zero, two thousand and fifty words. We'll round it off to 2000. According to 1 hr and 20 min per 500 words, it takes 5 hours and 20 minutes to write 2000. woah, that's so much. 

If it were 1 hour 40 it would be 6 hours and 40 minutes. jeez that's like most of my day. 

So yeah, i took at least 5 hours of my day and invested it into this project and I also need to finish these worksheets of math problems. 

I'm still missing like 3 worksheets so I should really get into those, so yeah nothing really happened today, just a writing day, and not even creative writing. b o r i n g  w r i t i n g. 

I'm gonna keep going at those worksheets so let's just hope that I can do most of it before bedtime at 11. or else mom is gonna take my phone away for tomorrow, and we don't want that. 

quirkle

So today was pretty tiring. We slept at around 1:30 and then I woke up in the middle at 4:38 because it was so cold and my blanket wasn't really enough to keep my entire body covered so yeah, so cold. 

Then during the day, we played some more ping pong, I think pen hold works better for me now lol. 

Also, I did more of the project, I finished all the hotels and most of the descriptions, so now I'm just missing some descriptions and a "script" whatever that is, I'm still not too sure but I don't think it's supposed to take long. I'll be sure to ask the teacher about it tomorrow.

Oh right we played this really cool table game called Quirkle where you have pieces that are of different colors and shapes and you have to place them in a row to accumulate points. It was my first time so it was kinda new but Psi got the hang of it really fast and he won at the end of the game. Super fun game, maybe I'll get it sometime

When we left at the end they gave us a bag of their food and it's amazing since my parents didn't want to make dinner lol. 

So yeah dinner is handled and so is tomorrow's breakfast I think. Great stuff really, I hope we can do it again sometime in the future. 

Today's blog is gonna be short and concise becuz i really need the sleep that I missed out on last night lol. Good night

yay hangouts

Today was very fun

In the morning I took a class, well they called it  "training" for the math olympiad I got into. 

There were like 15 people in total in the zoom call. I actually know the teacher of the class, her dad knew my dad because they were both professors. I think I've been to their house too once a couple years back. Anyways, in that class I barely understood anything. 

They were using stuff like the Mannheim Theorem and also they kept on repeating the phrase "spiral similarity", spiral similarity this and spiral similarity that. Basically no one in the class understood what was going on except for these two seniors that I saw at the last training camp from the past year. 

Then after we finished class I hurried out the door to Rama's. Since it was his birthday like two days ago he wanted us to meet up at his place so we could all hang out for the first time in like two months. A lot of Rama's cousins were there, there were like 4 of them. 

They were all younger than us, ranging from like 3-9 years old. It was really loud a lot of the time so it really contrasts from my quiet home of 3 people. 

The food is also great, it's from their culture so it tastes very different from my usual meals at home. 

ALSO whilst writing this blog Rama joined my server and sang Despacito with no music hahahaha it was hilarious. 

Anyways I'm gonna get going back now, I've spent like an hour without posting this blog. Ok well I guess that seals it for today and I will see you tomorrow.

stealing points

Today was a pretty day. 

English was chill, we finished the little story, it was sort of a sad story. The kind that you would not want to dream of in a happy dream but not as bad as something you would dream of in a nightmare. 

Speaking of nightmares, I dropped in MarketWatch, they started a new game so all progress was erased and everyone started at 0. On the third day, I was first place with over 450k in gains and more than doubling the guy in second place. 

But today a guy passed me and I have dropped to 327k. Sad times. 

Oh right then in Spanish I did my little presentation on the types of novels that there are, the teacher was really really rigorous on spelling and accentuation and grammar and because of that we lost some points and ended up getting a 17/20 as a grade, which is an 85%. DANG IT! 

Spanish grammar sucks, I had all the accentuation and the spelling down but like the grammar, ugh that part sucked. But my friend had it worse, I'm pretty sure I named him before but I have forgotten his nickname. We will call him Fox from now on. Fox Fox Fox, the fox likes to cook in the kitchen. ok ok I think I won't forget this one. 

So Fox's group had it worse because they had like a lot of accents that were missing and a lot more grammatical mistakes than ours. The teacher was like, 5, 6, 7, 8! who can find all the errors? And if you weren't from the presenting group and found the errors she would award you bonus points however she would deduct points away from the presenting group. OUCH. 

It was basically like stealing points from other people and adding it to your own. Really cruel huh. I think so too, that's why I texted Fox some of the errors that I found so that he could say it and not lose his points instead of me saying it myself. I mean I probably would've ended up with a better grade than an 85% but I just didn't think it was the right thing to do there. 

Rama got off the hook with his Spanish presentation because today the teacher only had time for two groups to present and I was the first one whereas Rama's group is the last one so they have this weekend to fully revise their whole thing for any kind of mistakes that could cause the teacher to deduct any points. 

Then in History, we just spent full time working on the project, nothing much to say there.

 After class, my friends told me to write an email to one of our teachers asking him if he wanted to become our club advisor so wrote a persuasive email and I hope it works because otherwise the Chess Club will be sort of disbanded and we surely wouldn't want that. 

Then I had my AoPS class, I took the second half of it on Monday but missed the first half so today I got caught up on that half and I also sat through the second half too as a review. 

Yeah, that's about it, tomorrow is Saturday and I have a LOOOOONG weekend because of Labor Day on Monday. NO schoooool yay, that means I also have Monday to work on the project if I don't finish it before that. 

Yup, cya later. Gotta go to bed before 12 my mom says. bye

 Happy Birthday Rama

Today is Rama's birthday! 

Happy birthday Rama, I know that you barely ever read my blog lol but I'll still wish you a happy birthday here, congrats on being 14 years old now. You're an amazing friend and can make me laugh all the time so I hope you had a fantabulous day, and yes I still like the word fantabulous and I am also still amazed at the fact that it's even a word lol. 

So about the projects. Spanish I got my part done in writing, the rest of my group also looks to be finished to that's great. Now the time that we'll be given in class will be used towards finishing touches and perhaps a little rehearsal. 

The tour one I finished basically half of it, I still need to polish the descriptions a little bit but yeah, finishing tomorrow shouldn't be that hard. 

First-class Physics, the quiz was pretty hard, there was one where I thought I had the wrong answer but apparently, I was right cuz I got a 100% on the quiz so that's cool then we just went over the hard practice problems that we were given as homework the other day. 

The second class we had Music, went over my pieces, and which parts to improve and how, and then the teacher also explained to me a little about his own career and his major in college, what a percussionist does, and all that. It's pretty cool to be a percussionist because you need to be able to play all sorts of instruments and not just one so you have a lot more versatility. 

Third class PE, we first kinda talked about the topic we've been going over for the past week which is SEL or social-emotional learning and then we were divided into groups, and each person needed to explain a certain yoga pose and the whole class had to follow along and do it. 

Final class Algebra, more problems on dividing polynomials, only today we were doing more with the long division method so I liked it better. At the very end of the class, we played a Kahoot and guess who came in first. That's right. MOI. YAY, you didn't need to use long division for those problems actually you just needed to look at the constants and I only realized that on like the second problem lol. 

The final problem was a trivia question, who was the 35th president of the US, and it was Kennedy, i have my quick googling skills to thank for that one otherwise I probably wouldn't have gotten 1st. 

So yeah, pretty cool day overall and I will see you again, next timeeee

projects galore

Today I had three classes and in two of them, I was assigned a project. 

First, we have English, oh right a very sad thing happened, the teacher said that we were going to change groups every new month so now that it's the first days of September she disbanded the Dream Team. You know the one with Psi and Beam and some other cool people but my new group is fine. 

We have Tom, that is the nickname I am giving to this guy, you know for anonymity. Tom and another girl that's not bad at writing and she does her work so that's good. Then we have this talkative, half-toxic half-popular girl that no one really likes that much. And we also have this other kid, I'm going to call him Jean and he's ok I guess, in science class last year he survived but science is quite different than English. I'm not sure about his writing skills so I guess I'm going to find out later on. 

Uh yeah, all in all not bad. In class we did a class reading of the next few pages of the book, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised By Wolves, yes I remembered the name this time and the book is kinda interesting actually. It's not boring like most Spanish books anyways. well, maybe that's because I'm not as good at Spanish reading than English but we're not gonna talk about that. 

So after reading we did questions again on google slides that the teacher prepared and we finished so that's great. I'm still not too happy about our answer for the final question but everyone else on the team agreed so I wasn't on the majority. Plus this isn't like the camp where I could veto since I was the CEO, yeah we're all a team so sometimes you just can't do what you wanna do. 

Now, this brings us to our next class, Spanish. yay. 

We did the quote thing again, she said we were going to be doing it every day for as long as we take her class so that's going to be fun. I actually remember a bit about what the quote was, I'm going to translate because I know most of you readers out there aren't too familiar with Spanish. "The time urges, the future awaits, the past stalks... But the present commands." Kinda got a little help from google translate there with the verbs that I've never heard before in Spanish. 

It's not a bad quote, the thing is the teacher asked us to relate it to the end of the summer reading book and like, how am I supposed to do that. 

Apparently, the answer was, they switched the hearts of the real and the fake, (present), so now the national library is displaying the real one and it will continue that way, (future), and since they announced it had always been the real thing they "changed" the past through a lie, (past). 

Didn't make too much sense to me but the teacher said it and she gives out the points so, in stuff like literature where there isn't an accurate answer whatever the teacher says, it rules.  

We also got assigned a project where we work in groups, the PowerPoint is due on Friday so I've gotta work on that afterschool tomorrow. My group seems to be the type that will do their work so hopefully what happened at the camp and me having to stay up till 3 AM won't repeat itself. So history won't repeat itself.

Then we have history, see what I did there? no? anyways we didn't study any history. The teacher explained our project to us. 

It is an individual project using Google Earth to create a tour that lasts 7-days around 10 municipalities in Puerto Rico. You also need to include restaurants, hotels, and which routes you are going to take. This project is due on Tuesday, trust me it isn't as simple as it sounds. 

you need to find the place on google earth and then pin it at a good angle where the viewers will be able to clearly make out what you are trying to tell them, then finally research the place to write out a brief description of the place. 

Then the hardest part of it all, the whole presentation needs to be done within a span of three minutes. I'm sorry let me repeat myself, ahem, THREE MINUTES. that's 180 seconds, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, that's already 5 and I've barely said anything right?

Well, I wonder how this is going to go down because there is no way a project that I've been working on for 3 days is going to be presented in 3 minutes. 

Yup yup and I'm gonna get going now, cya

dumb tables

A quick run-through of today's classes.

Physics, took quiz on velocity, speed, distance, and displacement, boom god mode activated, perfect grade acquired, talked about acceleration, gave problems, problems really hard. 

Music, teacher suggests pieces to play, play through them with modifications on the left hand, chords, inversions, melodies, kinda like improv. 

PE, did a presentation on STDs, for those of you that don't know what those are, they are Sexually Transmitted Diseases and STDs for short. 

My group was unlucky enough to get chosen for that topic, there were other ones that were cooler and ones that I could elaborate more on like Psi's group got Health and Nutrition, and Rama's group got Alcohol and Drug Abuse, those I could like explain the process in detail but you know how it is with sex being a sensitive topic. So my group didn't go too into detail. 

We did a basic overview of it, common STDs, symptoms that can be identified, ways to prevent, and ways to treat. We were also going to do a 15-minute yOgA session but the teacher's wifi conveniently went out so we got let off the hook. 

Then finally Algebra, polynomial division, simple. 

However, teacher makes it complicated by introducing a dumb "tabular method" where you need to make this big table and fill in all the stuff with the coefficients, and then finally add them all up. And then that's multiplication so division there's a rEvErSe tabular method. Which sucks. Who wants to make a table when you can just do a couple of lines.

I could just do polynomial long division and it would be a lot faster and simpler. We're gonna take a quiz on this next time so I really hope that tabular method doesn't come up. yup pretty much summarizes my classes today. 

Then after school dad explained the physics stuff that I didn't get and I had to use this one formula in like nearly every problem that the teacher never even explained to us in class so that sucks. 

I wonder how the other kids in my class are gonna get that done, the teacher said that these problems weren't for points but still, really dealing heavy blows on our pride and self-esteem. 

Oh right, I also got into a google meet with L again, and because he had some questions on a math thing, and so I gave him three solutions that all lead to the right answer and told him to choose whichever he felt most comfortable with and gave him another problem to solve. 

He was still a little confused so I got Psi to solve it first and explain it to them. 

Psi DID find the answer but claims to not know how to explain it so once again I needed to be the explainer. yay. 

And then L's brother claims to be a fast typer and that he just broke his record today so I raced the kid. ouch. 92 wpm crushed the guy. lol but I mean I'm sure I type a lot more than him every day, just look at the length of this blog, look at the character count, yeah and I've posted nearly 100 in a row now I think.

So yup, pretty cool. good night.