The Year 2021

Would you just look at that? 2020. The year in which we were all in fear, uncertainty, and distress... is officially, over. Welcome, to the year 2021. 

You know what they say, a new year, a fresh start, one filled to the brim with opportunities for each and every one of us. Now that's what New Years' is all about. It's not about the fireworks going off around us, it's not about the champagne you toast with, but about a chance. A chance to make our lives better. A relentless fight to make the odds go in our favor, and make our one shot at life, worth reliving. 

I know it's been a hard year. It's been hard on us all. But now that's all in the past. As of right now, we are in the year 2021. The very first day, in the very first month, of 2021. People say to not gamble, but I'm willing to bet that, this year, this chance that we've been given, will not go to waste. If anything, it shall be the impetus to push us all forward, to propel us to do better, to be greater. Yet, to be or not to be, it's purely up to each and every one of you to decide. 

This is your own choice. Yours, and yours alone. Are you willing to change your life? Yes, it's easier said than executed. However, this adversity not as difficult, most make it out to be. Adversity? No, it's a form of adaptation. A metamorphosis, so to speak. Perhaps one of the many you'll undergo in following years, or decades to come. This certainly is not a slight subtle difference that could be taken lightly. It's a revolution, one that will massively impact your very own life as you know it. 

How exactly would one accomplish such a feat? Simple, really. Plainly stated, just do the things you know are right and avoid the things you know are wrong. Follow this straightforward cardinal, and everything will begin to change. 

Starting with your own life. 

Do better. Be Greater. Fight for your odds. In this new year, the chance brought to us, by the year 2021. 

Musical Basics

Hi guys! It's a bit late so I'll cut to the chase. 

The morning started off peacefully. We had pancakes for breakfast and then I had my Chinese lesson with grandma. I needed to memorize like 6 different tongue-twisters and I have to show her next class sigh. I'll have to study later. 

After class, I did some math. Just looked at a few problems from the worksheet. OH yea, and during one of my breaks I watched this cool guy on youtube. His channel is MusicalBasics and he's a pianist. He composes really well too, and the composing software that I use is the same as his. I don't know how he can just improvise so well though, I need to look that up sometime. 

Hmm, okay... I also reread a bit of one of the books I read not too long ago. This particular book made me cry the first time I read it. It's honestly super deep and emotional, with a lot of meaning depicted in one single heart-breaking story. Right, so ah yes I talked to someone I haven't talked to in quite a while. Like a really really long while. Hmm, 2 years? The point is, it's nice to catch up after so long. 

Ah, so later in the night, I did some review for physics too. Good ol' Khan Academy. LOLLL, I haven't used Khan Academy for ages actually. School no longer requires it, and I have other sources to learn from now too. But tbh, it's still a great site for a plentiful amount of practice problems if you need them/

Yup, that about sums up my day. Good night now!

a marvelous land

Hi there. We're back at it again! Hmm, today's activities weren't too tightly packed. 

In the morning I read my fabulous book a little and then proceeded to do some math. It's a review exam worksheet for my 42points class. 20 problems in total that cover almost all of the topics we talked about during the past semester. I finished 10 of the 20 today and I'll try to finish the rest in the next day or two. 

Ah yes, and then, I went back to our rental apartment where the workers GOT THE JOB DONE TODAY! Perfect isn't it. Yesterday, they caused one of the pipes to leak so we had to turn off the water entirely as to not flood our apartment. So they brought in a plumber today who used a flame torch to weld new pipes together. That was the main event for today's work. After the welding, the heater started functioning just fine so everything was all good. 

Anyways, after the workers left it was already pretty late. As soon as we cleaned up a bit, my dad and I went to go pick up mom from her store directly from the apartment. We got to the store and then from there went to an oriental market in hopes of buying duck for dinner but sadly they sold out LOL so we just found a semi fast-food restaurant to dine at instead. We were ravenous after all. Only had little leftovers to eat for lunch so we were starving. That was also the main reason we wanted to buy the duck because then cooking dinner would've been a lot easier with the main dish already prepped up and ready to go. 

Yeah, then subsequently we traversed the highways to the marvelous land called Supermax. It is a rare gem in the world. One of the supermarkets we visit most often is Supermax. Their locations always make the trips super convenient and they have all the stuff we need on a daily basis in stock too. OH, and you can't forget about the acai bowls! Those are awesome and very delectable if I do say so myself. 

Yup, oh noes, sigh I gtg. Time is running short. BYEE

some new vocab for dig (danish)

Heyyy and it's another post. Haha, look at all my posts that I can boast! Maybe one day I'll look back and use some of these to quote. Read some by the coast, show my guests when I'm the host. Raise them to a toast even later when I'm a ghost. BOO! LOL you know, that one wasn't half bad. My second attempt at impromptu rhyme here on my blog LOL. 

OH I read more of my book today too! Here are some cool words I picked up:

Magnanimous - adjective to describe when you are forgiving

Picturesque - adjective, attractive to the eye

Ardent - passionate and enthusiastic

Jaunty - cheerful and self-confident

Estranged - when no longer close to someone

Reconciliation - I believe it is the only noun in this list LOL, when you restore a friendly relation (google)

Yeah, so basically the whole day was spent at our rental apartment today. My parents had thought that the water heater was broken last night so they phoned an electrician to come and take a look at it. However, this particular electrician did not know the bare minimum amount of English to be able to communicate with my parents so I had to step in with my fantabulous Español skills. No, I did not copy-paste the ñ. Of course, I didn't. What are you talking about ?_?

Anyways, we had thought that it was only going to take two hours at most but it ended up being more like... 9. Yeah, super-duper long. We went to The Home Depot two SEPARATE times. The first time, we went to get a new water heater but of the same kind. The second time we realized even the new one of this kind did not function properly so we had to go fetch ANOTHER one. Yup and I have no idea what my parents would've done if I hadn't been born. Luckily, I was. So I took care of the translating and became the middle man in terms of communication. 

As you can see, 9 hours is kind of like, THE WHOLE DAY, so that's where most of my time went. The thing is, they weren't even able to fully repair it today. and I have to go back tomorrow. Great. They did say that tomorrow was going to be speedy though so I hope their word is true. 

Okie then, only a couple minutes left until my deadline soooo godnat! (danish for good night btw)

fully free

Today was actually almost fully free. No quotation marks. So, I went to my mom's store today and spent the day there. There were quite a few sales today, and some of them were big ones. 

OH yea, I read a book today too AND learned some cool words. You see, saying something is virtually the same as something else is equivalent to saying it is tantamount to something else. I think tantamount is a nice word. I'll try to use it sometime. Another one I learned was adroit. It means to be clever or skillful. So you could say, Tango was adroit at destroying other players in ninja.io. 

LOL oh yes, that's right. I played quite a bit of ninja today. Psi accompanied me for some time as well. And oh yea, Tango is my in-game username. So, the thing is, I'm kind of undefeatable in this game. Well, not really UNbeatable, but it's very hard to win when I'm around. Psi beat me today but that's only because he's super amazing. The point is that when Psi isn't around, I'm basically untouchable. Not trying to show off or anything... but I'm kind of one of the top 10 players in the entire world. Yup. So people call me a hacker or a cheater, sigh. It gets annoying sometimes, but at the end of the day, I still win nearly every game I play so it doesn't bother me much. 

So as you see, today was practically fully free as noted above. Mhm, tomorrow the grind resumes. Gute Nacht meine Freunde! 

 Merry Christmas 2020

Hey everyone, so sorry for not posting a blog post yesterday. I just fell asleep before I knew it and woke up the next morning. 

Yesterday passed by very fast. For the most part, I was working on this video project for BOP. I needed to answer three questions relating to the development of the organization in both English and Chinese. Hmm, I'll put in the three questions here, they're in Chinese though: 第一个：蒲公英远程支教项目最吸引你的是什么？第二个：你觉得蒲公英远程支教项目哪里可以改进？第三个：你可以为此改进做什么？

Moving on to today though, Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all had a holly, jolly day. 

As for me, in the morning, we ate a light breakfast, oh and I recorded that video that I needed to do for BOP. You know, the teaching English to kids organization. I wrote the whole script and everything yesterday. It took up quite a long time too but anyways, after I recorded it I tried to send it to the organization through WeChat, right? 

well, turns out the video attachment was too large to be sent over WeChat. So okay, I thought, I can just turn it into a youtube video and then give them the link. So I uploaded the video onto youtube and sent them the link. Only to realize that the person I was supposed to be sending this link to, is in China. And youtube doesn't WORK in China. 

Wow, just great isn't it. Now, what was I supposed to do? Turns out, I had this screen recording software downloaded and when I screen record something with it, it takes up a lot less space. My original 6 minute video was 350MB but when I screen recorded another video, which was 9 minutes, it only took up around 50MB. 

And so that's amazing because now that I have my youtube video, I can just screen record my laptop while playing the video! Just like that, the problem of the day, SOLVED! 

Ah I went to the beach today as well. To visit my grandfather from my mom's side. It's his birthday. Happy birthday Grandpa. I miss you. 

Right, so after the beach we went back home. Our home was still a mess from the construction so we had to clean it all up. As of right now, it's super tidied up and ready for us to move back. We still decided to stay at our rental for one more night though. So here I am, writing this post. 

It's not particularly a white Christmas here in Puerto Rico, but it is a silent night, Have an amazing Christmas everyone, good night!

rhyme for no reason

 My my my. And yet another day has gone by. Oh, how time can fly. Wow, it's really dark now just look at the sky. OK, that last one isn't one to exemplify. Yup, haha not too strict on what rules to abide by. Yeah, I should stop now, and if you see this and ask me if I wrote it, I would most likely deny. That's it for tonight's attempt at rhyme. 

Hmm, oh yes let's start from the morning. I woke up at the crack of dawn. Okay, maybe not the CRACK of dawn but relatively earlier than my usual 9 o'clock. And then it took around an hour to sort off the luggage... Ah yes, so there's construction going on at my house so we had to move for a few nights. Or so we thought.

So the workers we hired came at around 8 or 8:30 I believe so when they started drilling, my mom brought me to the place where we're staying to take my grandma's additional Chinese lesson. The lesson ended at 10:30, and today's lesson was great! It was this cool story about the origin of a Chinese idiom, 杯弓蛇影。 And we also talked more about how to use these idioms in everyday speech. 

Oh and then, uh, I kind of, fell asleep. For an hour or two, and by the time I woke up my parents also arrived and informed me that the workers ALREADY FINISHED EVERYTHING! Wowie, that certainly was fast wasn't it. We were originally planning on staying in this rental apartment for at least two to three nights but from the looks of it, just tonight will do. The newly replaced floor tiles need some time before it's super stable to step on so that's why we still need to leave it for one night. 

Yeah, oh, and then in the afternoon I reviewed some Physics knowledge on angular displacement, velocity, and acceleration. Plus I looked over the problems I didn't solve in the AMC10 I did previously.

Ah I should go to sleep now, more sleep can't do no harm can it? Good night! 

to be determined

Heyyy, I'm back! Only two days left till Christmas! And tomorrow is Christmas Eve. 

I woke up a bit earlier than usual but then stayed in bed to read a book LOL. That went for about an hour or so. After eating breakfast I started reading again but this one is on Kindle. Well, I don't have an actual Kindle tablet but there's an application you can download for free on your computer so that's the one I'm using. Hmm, I read another book there for an hour too. 

Then, when my dad got home from bringing mom to work, he started teaching me some basic trigonometry. Just the trig ratios and unit circle for now, but I think we're going to delve deeper into that throughout the break. Sigh, that took up most of my day actually. 

OH, I also tried to compose a bit of my song although I'm a bit stuck on how to start it out. Ah and besides that, the software that I was planning on using had a malfunction of some sort so I wasn't able to actually start until after I had that fixed. 

Later on in the day, I played some games with my friends on Roblox. Apparently, they're pretty serious about the game and even starting designing a team uniform and everything. However, we're still missing a team name... That's still to be determined though. 

Finally, I tried out some sample problems of math from previous high school science bowl competitions to see what I still needed to learn. Mhm, and I basically just got back from that. Okie then, I need to wake up very very early tomorrow, like 6:30 AM so I better get to sleep. Buona Notte!

goals finished

Imagine if you had a perfect schedule to follow every day and you actually accomplished one day according to schedule. Ha, well I achieved the goals I set for myself today so it's all coolio. 

Anyway, the day started off great. I did another AMC10 practice test, I scored in the top 13 percentile this time which is an improvement. Hmm, then I spent some more time on figuring out the ones I wasn't able to solve. A lot of geometric probability this time so seems like the struggles I had in the last exam are recurring in this one. Therefore, tomorrow will be laser-focused on geometry. 

After that, which is like 4 hours later, I had my piano lesson! There was a ton of traffic so we got a bit late but the class itself went swell. We were mostly working on my Autumn Leaves piece since that's the one I've been practicing most at home as well. 

Mhm, then so after the class it was pretty late already. When we got back home it was almost 7 o'clock. Right after dinner, I looked a bit at how stocks performed today. Did you know that today Tesla was officially added to the S&P 500? Oh, and it's also winter solstice! Tesla didn't do too hot though, however, I WAS able to buy back the shares I sold at 680 when it dropped to 650. Easy money. 

Yeah, so that's about it for today. My main goals today were the AMC test, piano class, and OH YEA I also tried learning some stuff for Physics as a review/preview. 

 

Okie, good night!!

christmas is almost upon us

HELLO fellow brothers and sisters. Welcome to my post of the day. So, today was kind of packed. Had a strong start to finish, did a lot of stuff. 

We start in the morning. I had my Chinese class with grandma, I have to say that my pronunciation is much clearer now thanks to these classes, but I still need to work on it in just everyday speech. That's because when I don't focus on my enunciation then it could become unclear and perhaps not as easy to understand. That's a long term goal though. 

After my class, I had a haircut. Yup, that's right, the last haircut of the year. Actually, if you think about it, there are only fiveee dayyyys left TILL CHRISTMASSS! And new years is only a mere 6 days after. Why are all the holidays so close together? 

Anyway, after the haircut, I practiced some math and piano too. The right hand part is now pretty fluent, so the left hand will be my focus from here on out. Oh and for math, I did a practice exam for AMC10. According to statistics I only got into the top 20 percentile. 

However, I missed two of the EASIEST questions. Questions 3 and 5 on a 25 problem test. So if I got those two, it would've landed me in the top 10 percentile. Hmm, and from the looks of my performance, I should focus on probability and geometry. There were 4 problems on probability on this exam and I couldn't solve any soooo if I manage to get a few of those it would be awesome. 

Ah yea, then I practiced MORE piano anddd made my schedule. I'll show you it sometime. GOOD NIGHT!!!!

always rehearse

Sigh, I'm running real low on time right now so I'll try to make this brief. 

Since today was Saturday, it is my free day. Thus, most of today was very relaxing and calming to the soul and mind. Played some roblox with Dino too. hmm, yes I practiced almost, if not two hours of piano today and I have managed to memorize the right-hand part of Autumn Leaves completely. Now, I'm only missing like two pages of the left-hand part (4 pages total), and then put them together! 

Ah, I also attended this meeting of the English program I tutor in since it's the 4 year anniversary and they also had new stuff to announce. They're going to be starting these clubs, if you join one I suppose it's a good way to meet other kids which is hard now due to the fact that everything's virtual. 

Oh the PowerPoint presentation they gave, oh my, I probably could've given a better one. The clarity of the slides was decent at least, well very good, but some of them were a bit cluttered. Ah, and a few of the kids presenting had a very bad tone of voice. It sounded like they didn't even want to be there at all and you could tell that they didn't rehearse for this beforehand. 

Although, the content itself wasn't bad at all. These clubs do sound like a good idea and um there's also a BYC thing they're starting. Bloom Youth Community they call it. I will probably sign up for it because I want to be more active in this program. Mhm, okay that's it for now. cya!

virtuoso

So, day at the store. 

I brought my laptop with me too and I had this little area to myself. From that spot, I could see whoever was entering the store by simply rotating my head when I hear the entrance bell sound. Mostly I was there to accompany my mom because it wasn't busy AT ALL and so there were barely any people that entered the store. With this being said, of course, our sales weren't all that appealing either LOL. But then at least, we won't be looooosing money from our store since we still need to pay the rent and stuff.

Oh yea, so when we just opened for the day, a guy came in a gave us a flyer with a lunch menu and a number. We did bring something to eat but it wasn't really going to be enough for the two of us so we decided to give this delivery thing a try. I phoned the number and talked in very good Spanish to place our order. So because their store was in the vicinity, all you needed to do was just give them your address and they'll deliver it over for you, free of charge. I mean we did give a tip, but you don't HAVE to if you didn't want to which is quite nice. 

Ah yea, I also discovered a virtuoso at the art of singing while playing the piano. Tom Lehrer. Give it a search. The very first song I heard from him was "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park". Okay now, I know that it doesn't sound too good but trust me here, once you listen to it you'll want to listen to more of this guy's songs. He uses advanced vocab, great piano accompaniment, rhymes like no other, and to top it all off, his lyrics are written with interesting stories behind them. Mhm, so if you're not too busy, try and listen to that song and I hope you like it. 

Oh time is running short. Okie, have a great night guys! byebye

its over

my my my, the final day of this semester is over. And you know what that means, NO SCHOOL TOMORROWWW!! 

Yup, and so today I get to sleep at 12 LOL. Ah right, I also woke up later than usual today because my first class was English and I just so happened to finish my essay LAST class which meant I didn't have to go to English! Mhm, so taking this into account, technically, the first class I TOOK was Spanish. 

In Spanish, we had a little discussion on catharsis and what it is. Basically, it's when you liberate your emotions through some way or form. And then we read an article on it, and that led to a series of questions. I feel like I answered all the questions fairly well and as soon as we finished with that, the class was dismissed. 

And the final class of the day was History. Once again, it was just the project. So Fox, Dino, and I hopped in a breakout room and worked on a PowerPoint presentation. We also agreed to meet somewhere during the break to finish up the whole thing so I need to plan that later as well. 

Ah yes, Psi, Rama, Dino, and Toro also played the roblox volleyball game for like two hours today after school to celebrate LOL. 

Sigh, tomorrow I will go and help my mom out at her store too. Although I doubt it'll be too busy with the pandemic still going on. Anyway, I should still get going now. Gute nacht!

 5/7 two more to go

Why would you look at that. Tomorrow's the final day of this semester. 5 of my 7 classes are already finished. 

First class today was Physics. It was a kind of test in some way. 40 points, I believe it was, and I think I did pretty well on it. If worst comes to worst, I should still have a 96 in the class. 

Ah, Music class didn't last very long. Today we had to go into the big class so the advanced band class and my own music class mixed together. We watched a video of their final product on the Christmas song they practiced and then talked for a little bit before leaving. 

In PE we played this game where we crumpled up pieces of paper and tried making them in a basket. Basically basketball with paper balls for basketballs and a shoebox instead of a hoop. And then there was a timer for 1 minute and we needed to try to make it in as many times as we could in 1 minute. I made 27, but I think that's mostly because my room is pretty small so the shoebox is quite close to where I was shooting from. 

Last class, Math. Well, there was a test. 10 questions. And I messed up on one of them because I only looked for roots after simplification but I also needed to do it BEFORE simplifying. So then, that will definitely lower my grade a little. BUT NO MATTER, I should still be able to maintain an A+ in the class.

Yup, and so tomorrow I only need to finalize in Spanish and History, andddd WE'RE HOME FREE!

3 week break is awaiting me, farewell!

 

brand new pc

heyyy, guess what? I'm back... WITH A NEW LAPTOP! 

Yup, that's right. Jerry got an upgrade on his laptop. It has 12 gigs of RAM, 512 on the hard drive, and the CPU is Core i7. So basically, it has a lot more space and it's also supposed to run faster too. 

I tried playing ninja.io on it, and I practically demolished the entire lobby... so I'd say it is indeed faster. Lags less too. Oh and it took me only about an hour to set it all up but let's rewind a bit, shall we?

English was cool today. I moved some stuff around and added some finishing touches to my essay. At the end of the class, I submitted it. And so next English class, I don't have to join LOL. yeah, lots of people were dismissed at the very beginning of today's class and only left like 8 of us. Although I was essentially already finished, I decided to stick around for Psi and Beam. 

In Spanish, we first had a discussion about the word "chango" and what it meant in a specific quote she showed us. Later, we read the rest of the article we were reading last class and answered a couple questions regarding the text. After that, we discussed all the answers as a group and we each received points based on how well we answered the questions. I think I should've gotten those points so that helps to raise my Spanish grade. 

Lastly in History, we had a group project. It's a bit of a weird project. Very open, not too many restrictions on it. We were just given a topic to talk about, a few ideas to consider, and that's it. The rest is up to us. But we have to prepare a full presentation on it. LUCKILY, the due date for the project is AFTER winter break. So that means we have the whole break to work on it if it comes to that. Of course, we want to finish as much as possible today and the next class LOL. So the whole class was dedicated to this. 

After school, I went to the doctor for my yearly checkup and then subsequently went to Costco and bought my beloved new laptop. Yup, ok i don't have much time left so I'll leave it here. good night!

shorter classes

Hello! 

So, we did that physics lab today. And although the centripetal force of the marble didn't go through the bottom layer of Jell-O as easily as I expected, it's coolio to say I got perfect on it. So, I believe that should raise my grade. Albeit the school made it so that we couldn't see our grades anymore for this final week, I think I should still be able to keep track of most of them. 

Music was especially short today. Mostly because of the special schedule change for this week. 

So basically, there are only 60 minutes periods, and therefore, each school day ends earlier for this week. Mhm, so I was out of class at 1:20 PM. 

Oh that's right, tomorrow is going to be even shorter because there are only three periods instead of four. But, I heard from Psi and Toro today that in History tomorrow there's going to be a group project worth quite a lot of points so I should stay alert for that. 

Hmm, ah yes. PE. The teacher missed the first 30 minutes of class because she forgot about the special schedule. Mhm, so then we just watched another video on the inspirational "believe in yourself" examples and then did a little activity on that. It was in breakout rooms and Pen was with me but idk why, he just didn't talk that much today. So I kinda had to do most of the talking in the group. No problemo though, we managed to get the work finished by the end. 

Yeah, in math we just did some adding and subtracting rational expressions. Super simple stuff. And then next class he's going to give us an assessment on all of it combined. Adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing rational expressions. The whole package. Yup, so definitely looking forward to that and I should be able to ace this one too if I'm careful enough. Sigh, I should go off to sleep now. Bonne nuit

 Jell-O

Hello guys. Welcome to Jerry's kitchen. So, I made Jell-O for a physics project today. It's meant to be an experiment to show us an example of centripetal force. 

Basically, I needed to make two layers of Jell-O in a clear plastic cup and stick a marble in between the two layers. Then, after the Jell-o has hardened, the marble would be trapped between the two layers of Jell-o right? 

After that, I'm supposed to cut some strings and rope them onto the cup to be able to swing it around like a lasso. Kind of. With that kind of centripetal force, the marble should sink into the lower layer of the two and that's how the results are supposed to be like. 

I believe we should be conducting the swinging part of the experiment tomorrow, today was just the first half in actually making the Jell-o with the marble in the middle. To make the Jell-o, we needed gelatin. We thought we had enough with two packets of it but it turns out we needed 4 so we went out in the afternoon for that. 

Yup, ok but in the morning I also took my Chinese class. My grandma had a hard time connecting to Zoom on her iPad since it was her first time because the computer was being used by my aunt. The class itself went fine though, we read another story. 

This one about a guy who went looking for gold by a riverbed but ended up not finding any. He then used the land he had to grow flowers to sell to the rich people near that area and lastly, he ended up becoming rich himself. Mhm, so the morale essentially was, don't expect to just find gold/fortune out of nowhere, you have to actually work for it in order to achieve prosperity. Mhm. 

Yeah, I also read and did some math later on in the day. AHHH i don't have enough time to keep going so... GOOD NIGHT GUYS!

 tbd

Well hi guys. My mind is very groggy at the moment and my eyelids quite heavy. I'll write this post in the morning so I'll just jot down some key terms to help myself remember tomorrow. 

reading

fermat point

english essay

roblox volleyball LOL

tutor class, 2nd grade, 7 years, one month

MIDI controller

Heyo, what's up everyone! Hope you all had a nice chill day like I did. 

First class in the morning is English. I basically have my essay finished so I just stuck around the classroom to help some other classmates in need. I think I helped like 4 people in class? Yeah, pretty much, so it was fun reading other people's essays. Mhm. 

In Spanish we first had a little discussion over another saying, did some classwork about writing on a recent event that's happened to us, and how it relates to one of the sayings presented by our classmates the other day. Yeah, wow, my memory is getting foggy on what we did for the rest of class... Ah yes, then we read a passage from an essay on why the "chango" should be Puerto Rico's national bird since we don't have one yet. She also said we're going to be answering some questions about this essay next class so I gotta be ready for that too. 

Finally in History, we essentially just read a short story in a book that we've literally only used once this ENTIRE SEMESTER, and it was only 6 pages long. AND THEN, answer these 5 questions relating to the story. Personally, I thought the questions were pretty simple but Rama and Dino seemed to have a hard time figuring out what to write so I gave them a little nudge in the right direction.

Yeah, and then, my present came in the mail today. It's a MIDI controller which is basically a keyboard that connects with your computer to make cool music. But actually, I like the sound on my regular piano better LOLL but then again I can compose on this so... it has its ups and downs right? 

However, the software used to edit the composition is soooo complicated. Like it took me almost an hour just to get a sound out of the thing. I downloaded a lot of different software too, to try out other ones and see if there's a better fit. Yeah, I'm running a bit tight on time now so I'll see ya guys later. bye!

PE or English?

HELLO HELLO HELLO! Today was a weird day. Not because anything weird happened, but it just felt a bit different than your average day. 

In the morning, we had Physics first class. We did a little review, some problems, and then a quiz on centripetal force. I think I got a perfect but I'm not sure yet. Then right after, we did a lab but I miss clicked on one of the multiple-choice questions, so that's two easy points down the drain. But later in the day, he sent out a message saying that those people who finished the lab completely would get 5 extra points so I'm hoping that I get that bonus which will cover my mistake. I got the rest of the questions right though. 

Ah now's Music. I had just gone to my piano teacher yesterday so I had fixed a lot of stuff. We basically went headstrong into the jazz piece and I played the whole thing through twice. I think, maybe, I'll be able to know almost the entire right-hand part this weekend? Hopefully. 

Oh yea, I think I mentioned this once already, but PE has officially become an English class too. The teacher made us write a three-paragraph ESSAY on another one of those inspirational videos. This time it was about Mark Henry, the world's strongest man. hmm, you know what, I might as well just copy-paste the whole essay here. okay, wait just a second... 

Jerry Chen 

Physical Education 9-2 

10 December 2020 

Mark Henry, the world’s strongest man, is most definitely a mentor and role model for thousands, perhaps millions, through their television screens. He even set up a wilderness camp to help kids that want to get away from their stress for a little bit and rejuvenate their spirits, all while helping them learning new skills and techniques to boost their confidence. This camp provides the kids with mentors that truly believe in their abilities even when they’re doubting themselves. Mark built this place, a place for kids to rest up and continue, full-speed ahead, in the marathon of life. This is why Mark Henry is a leader.  

It took him years of relentless practice to get to where he stood. World titles, championship belts, that scale of success is not meteoric. Mark trained hard, harder than anyone else to become the world champion in weightlifting, powerlifting, and strong man as well. The top in three categories, this feat is still unparalleled to this very day. As he lifted in his yard back when he was still in school, the other kids starting looking up to him and consequently following his lead until his own backyard became a gym for his fellow lifting companions. Mark said that he grew up around wrestling, and so after the sport of lifting became adulterated with steroids and drugs, he left that community and found a new passion for wrestling.  

Now, the strongest Mark Henry was not always this way. He was a troubled kid back in school. Always getting into complicated situations, flunking his studies, definitely not someone you would consider as a star student. However, he had a very supportive mother. “Seeing her cry when I got sent to juvie, was the worst thing that’s ever happened to me in my life,” Mark said. His headstrong mother was one of the important factors that pushed him to keep getting better and climb his way up to the top, step by step. But, when the lifting community got polluted with steroid users, if Mark had stayed in that circle, it could have ruined his entire career. Albeit, he had the courage to leave and join in on a brand-new sport. And then, he shook the wrestling world as well. That was just a mere fragment of the epic tale of Mark Henry, the strongest man ever. 

Yikes, that looks a lot longer than what I thought it was LOL. So then, after the essay, we did a workout of course and that was pretty much the end of class. 

In math, oh dang it, the format of the blog got messed up after my copy-paste. Sigh, I guess I'll just have to leave it as it is now. Next time I'll do the copy-paste at the very end LOL. 

Anyway, as I was saying, in math we did a review on fractional polynomials. A few problems, a few explanations, you get the gist of it. Then we had a quiz. An EASY QUIZ, I might add. Too easy in fact, I finished first in the whole class WHILEEE getting a 100% on it like an absolute god because as everyone already knows, Jerry is a god. I mean, otherwise, how did you even get onto this website without knowing the URL. 

Yup, so after obtaining that juicy 22/22 points, I was dismissed early. And that's the end of school. 

Ah yea, also, I really need to sleep on time today or else... gulp- My wifi is going to be going out even earlier so... we definitely don't want that happening. SO IN ORDER TO MAKE SURE THAT DOESNT HAPPEN, I will be ending this post here. Haha, the essay actually made the post so much longer than what I had in mind but, more for you guys to read. Good night guys

ibn battuta

Hey guys, so no class today because it's Wednesday. Anyway, there's not too much to write but I'll try to see what I can do. 

In the morning I ate a hearty breakfast and did some math until 1 o clock. Oh yeah, I woke up pretty late LOL. Then at 1, I met up with Rama, Dino, and Fox for the history project and we spent an hour explaining our parts and questions to each other. 

Ah right, Rama showed me this little animated series of 5 videos on youtube that narrate the travels of Ibn Battuta, a Morrocan explorer who went across more than 3 continents and meeting all kinds of people. And plus, the guy narrating has a pretty entertaining voice so it's quite fun to watch. You can search it up yourself if you're ever in the mood for some interesting history. 

Then later, I went over to my piano teacher's house for my lesson. It was a roughly 2-hour lesson so we covered a whole lot of stuff. haha, I literally brought almost 15 pages of sheet music but we didn't go over each one because I haven't even learned all of them LOL. The Autumn Leaves jazz piece is still in progress but now I'm also trying the first movement of Moonlight Sonata just on the side. It has a nice harmony to it. 

Right, so when I come back home it's like 5:30 already. I rested a bit and did math until 6:45 or something and then ate dinner. Dinner was great today actually, and seaweed salad tastes great. 

Mhm, so my online math lesson started at 7 so I took the first part of the class while eating. that just finished around one hour ago and now I'm here writing this entry for you guys. 

Yeah, okay I'll get going now. Have a jolly rest of your night!

beast mode

Bonjourno. I think today is considered as one of the more fun days one can have in quarantine. 

Oh right, so I'm sure you're probably aware by now that there's already a vaccine that basically has proven to be very effective and now they're starting to mass-produce it and supply it to everyone in the world. But, for now, the vaccine that they're come up with needs to be transported at an extremely cold temperature for it to stay effective. Otherwise, the vaccine won't be as potent. And since Puerto Rico is a tropical place, we'll probably not get the vaccine super fast. Okay, enough of that, allow me to get on with my school day. 

Today was a 3-class day. First class: English. In English, the whole block was given for us to finish writing our essays and I pretty much finished but maybe the conclusion could still use a little revision. I'll ask my friends to peer review it for me tomorrow. 

Ah, now we're in Spanish. This was arguably the most stressful class because we have presentations of Spanish sayings we needed to research. My research, although didn't go without a hitch, still was pretty successful. I had gathered enough information to plan out a whole presentation on it at least. Now, since I was the first on the list. I had to go first again. I mean it was predictable but I still wished that she could change up the order every once in a while. You know, maybe just to keep everyone on their toes. 

Sadly, she pointed out two or three grammar mistakes I didn't notice and so she took off a couple points. My final grade was a 26/30 (I just checked) and that lowered my grade from a 93 to a 92 which is terrible. The good thing is that she's going to give us a big participation grade at the end too so I just hope that the participation will raise it up a bit for me. 

Last but not least, we have History. And ngl, today's history class was one of the better ones. We were introduced to a group project consisting of taking notes on two lessons in the book and sharing it with the rest of our group. Then finally, using the information we got, fill out a chart full of questions together. Haha, the best part is, she let us choose our own four-man team. 

And then instantly, the beast mode team assembled. Rama, Dino, Fox, and Moi. LOLLL and I think we pretty much answered everything during the class period even when we were going to have some extra time next class as well. 

Yup, just amazing. We're going to meet up for another 30 minutes tomorrow though to finalize and that's it. BOOM. We should have this project in the bag. Oh and just in time too, look it's 10:40. Yayyyy. Okay then, have a fantabulous rest of your day!

big gains in the market

Hi there. You might be surprised as to why I'm posting so early today. Well, you can thank my mom for that. She set up this rule where she will cut off the Wi-Fi starting from 10 PM on school days so that I can manage my time better. So here I am, one hour before the Wi-Fi cut. 

Ahem, let's start off with some stocks. The market was crazy today. Tesla went up around 40 dollars per share and this other stock I was holding went up 15%. Overall, I was up around 8% at market close. However, I did choose to sell that 15% up stock at a certain point because I just had a feeling. Now, after I sold it, it went up 10 MORE percent so that's unfortunate. But, I still have a feeling that it might dip a lot in the next few days. I just need to wait on that. 

Now let's start school. Physics was my first class. We had a rapid review, and we hopped straight into a 20 point quiz. Sadly, I got mixed up on one formula and so I ended up getting that question wrong. I understand my mistake now though so if that problem ever shows up elsewhere I'm pretty sure I'll nail it. 

In Music, we did all kinds of stuff. Watched a video on a different interpretation of Autumn Leaves, played the elegy again, tried to learn some jazz components... yeah, good class. 

After lunch came PE. We watched this video on a guy who talks about his story. He was born without his left hand, and his family structure was also quite precarious. His parents divorced when he was 4 and his father passed away from cancer when he was 10. As you can see, a very bleak childhood. But the guy was super passionate about basketball and even with only one arm, he managed to make it to the pro leagues. So now he travels around the world, talking in schools, trying to inspire and motivate kids who are struggling like he used to. 

After watching the video we were instructed to fill out this worksheet filled with questions relating to the video. To be honest, it felt a bit more like an English class than a PE class at this point. However, we had a workout right after so that made it feel like PE again LOL. 

Sigh, and finally in Math, we talked about these functions. I don't really get what the teacher is trying to teach us here but the problems were all super easy. All you needed to do was plug in a few values and simplify the equation. So I have no idea what's new about it. Mhm, that's it for school. 

After that, I finished my Spanish PPT along with my History notes. Now, the English essay I'll try to finish tomorrow and we should be pretty much set. But I saw on the bulletin board for History that there's going to be a group project that starts tomorrow so I'm not particularly excited about that. I guess I'll see tomorrow how that plays out then. Boa noite!

racing the sun

Sigh, and just like that, the weekend is over. Really goes by after a blink of an eye right? 

Well, I guess it was partly because Saturday was mostly full of work, and didn't get much relaxation time in. And then, today was kind of the same. 

I woke up and had my Chinese class in the morning till a little before 12:30. In class, we read this little story about a boy. The grandmother of this boy died when he was in third grade and he was distraught. Full of pain. He said he ran tons of laps around the school track in anguish, and the melancholy filled him as he laid down, panting, on the grass. 

Then, later on, his dad told him that when it comes to things in time, all things will disappear eventually. Yesterday will always be yesterday and you can't change anything from yesterday. He told him that one day he would grow up, one day he would be just as old as his grandmother was, and that when his time was over, he too would disappear. 

This concept, of course, was very hard for a third-grade boy to grasp and understand. But one day, after school when he saw that the sun had almost gone down, he was determined to make it back home before the sun disappeared from view. He started running like crazy and as he reached his house, exhausted, he looked up and saw the sun still in sight, he was overjoyed. And he continued to set goals like these for himself. Racing against time itself. Each time he beat time, he was so happy with himself. That's basically the whole story. 

Ah right, then I did a ton of math. Oh, I also played some Roblox volleyball with Dino, Psi, Rama, and Toro. Definitely getting better btw. 

Right, I tried to do some Spanish too but about the project on the saying. There's almost NOTHING on it. It's one of those rare times that occurs one in a blue moon where the internet can't answer your questions. So, I'll need to email the teacher tomorrow regarding that. In the meantime, I should get going for now. Good night!

take over

It's late. But here I am, once again. 

Today's main activity was just the competition. As you may or may not know, a Model UN competition lasts for two days. Today was the second, and arguably the more important day. 

OK, I can't really go through the whole thing but I'll try to fill you in as much as possible here. 

We had pre-written lots of speeches before the committee reopened so we thought we were set. But, turns out, even with all the speeches we wrote, it STILL wasn't enough. Some of the other delegations just went rapid-fire and spoke again and again nonstop. And then, sighhh, the bloc that we created yesterday... It kind of got taken over by this other delegation that came out of nowhere and they started acting like they owned the place. 

Yeah, they just talked over us and gave some basic instructions. But it worked. I tried to take back the authority but it wasn't very effective. So I'll give them the win this time. However, the next time I see those two, I'll crush them beyond recognition. 

Ah right, good news. They don't win. They do get second though, whereas we only got a written mention. Not that a written mention is bad or anything, I mean, it's not. It's great actually, but of course, 1st, 2nd, or 3rd would've been nice too heh heh. OH, after committee ended, I played some piano for everyone. And apparently, people liked it LOLL. They wrote really nice words in the chat too so that part was probably a highlight of today. 

Yeah, but then tomorrow I have a ton of homework to do so wish me luck.

 no time left lol

HII this is Jerry. And here I am again, writing yet another entry on my blog. Ah, there's so much to talk about today! 

In English, it was pretty fun because the teacher had me go help this other kid in the class because I was ahead apparently. Yeah, so we went into a breakout room and I reviewed over what she already had but it wasn't much tbh, uh barely 2 sentences if I remember correctly. But, by the time I was finished with her she had a pretty good idea of the whole introductory paragraph and some evidence for the body paragraphs too. I'd say that's a job well done by moi. 

Ah right, I forgot to say that this girl is actually new to the school so I've never really ever talked to her before at all. Luckily, her Spanish is a lot better than mine and she just so happens to be in my Spanish class too so I was able to ask her some questions regarding the project as well. 

You see, we didn't really HAVE a Spanish class today. The teacher had some really bad internet problems or something about connecting to a server, but the point is she couldn't really give us class. So she just told us to work on this PPT project she talked about last class to explain a Spanish saying and give examples on where you can use it. 

History, wasn't entertaining because it was just lots of notes on Taino Mythology. 

Now, for the Model UN competition. As I had mentioned before, my committee is about the emu war. Oh my, there's only 30 minutes left. I'll tell you more about it in the NEXT blog. Which I am going to write, right now actually. 

 moi et seulement moi

So, my AoPS class finished pretty late thanks to daylight savings and now I only have a measly 7 minutes to write my blog. The thing is, there's actually quite a lot to write about today. 

In Physics, we had some more information on centripetal force. That took up most of the class, and then at the end, we had some classwork plus 5 juicy bonus points if we did extra work. 

The problems were fairly easy though, so I think almost everybody if not everyone got the bonus. Lucky for me, that just boosted my grade from a 96 to a 97 yayyyy. So it's an A+ now and let's hope we can keep it that way. 

Next, we're in Music. The student before me didn't show up again and at this point it's pretty common. That's why I asked the teacher if the next time that kid doesn't show up if I could use that time as well. He said yes. Awesome, because now if he doesn't come then I get double the class time and that's great. 

But, in class today it was based on that jazz piece that I'm trying to learn. Although my teacher isn't big on classical, he really enjoys jazz apparently so he's a lot more familiar with jazz piano than the other pieces I play. 

Ah yes, we're finally here. PE. Probably the best class today actually. Why? Well, that's because there was a presentation! and not just any presentation. MY presentation. LOLLL, moi et seulement moi. 

Yup, it was on the different nutrient groups and yeah, it was a group project but the teacher made each person of the group record their OWN video of their part. While also acknowledging the other slides our fellow companions made as well. As you know, I took the time to research my part on my "free" day, aka yesterday so the information was still fresh in my mind. So, I just started recording and worked my magic. 

Then, why were you the only one that presented, Jerry? That's a very good question. I guess I owe thanks to my teacher here for using this spinner website. 

She put in all of our names on a giant spinner wheel and whoever's name it landed on was supposed to be the "lucky winner" that gets to present first. However, the first five people it landed on all found various ways to NOT present. And then, the sixth one was yours truly. The presentation was a success btw, and a big hit as well from the looks of it. In the end, she gave me 100% so that's just fantastic. It was all worth it in the end LOL. 

However, it DID lower my grade. "How is that even possible?" you ask. Well, that's because of my 100.26% average in the class. Yeah, so even perfects lower my grade in PE now. What has the world come to? 

oh no, this blog turned out much longer than what it was meant to be. Oh well, good night guys. 

 "free" day

Ah I'm kind of late today so I'll TRY and keep it short. But then again, all the other times that I've said I was going to keep it short it ends up being very long LOLLL. 

OK, so there were no classes today. I woke up at around 10 I think and then I played some piano before breakfast to wake my brain and body up. 

Later on, I tried to write some of my English essay, and I managed to figure out the structure of the piece at least so that's good. Now, all I need to do for it is insert some evidence that I already have picked out and maybe embellish it a bit to make it ace-worthy. And then, hope the teacher likes it LOL.

Ah right, I also did the research for my PE PPT and finished my slides. I think I can count on the rest of my teammates to do their own part well so I didn't worry too much about doing their slides as well. But just in case, we agreed on meeting tomorrow at lunch for around 30 minutes to go over everything and finalize it. Maybe even rehearse it too. 

Hmm, oh yea I met up with Pen again today to write out an agenda to use on Friday. You see, the agendas get voted on, and whichever one passes first is the one that we use for the rest of the entire committee. The agenda we made last time didn't even get voted on because we were the third option and the second one passed the simple majority vote. However, we're still going to be making one because if ours DOES indeed get chosen, then we have a lot more stuff to talk about and that'll benefit us a ton. 

After that, I reviewed our physics material from last class and then studied a bit for math before the class at 7. 

The class itself wasn't all too bad either, I had done the majority of the problems beforehand so I could follow along pretty easily. Mhm, okie I have to go to bed now. good night!

12 o' clock

 Hi guys. So you might think that I'm already past my bedtime. But allow me to remind you that this is the first week back from break where we have a new schedule. With this new schedule, there aren't any classes on Wednesday! That means I get to sleep at 12 so in reality, I'm NOT past bedtime. And that's good because otherwise, my phone would be gone and that's no bueno.

Anyway, I'm here right now and I showered already too. Let's take a quick look at my classes today:

First off, we had English. The teacher started by reviewing a bit with us on what we have to do with the essay and then she followed up by assigning peer-review partners. I got assigned the girl that I had worked with a couple times before so it's decent in terms of communication. However, um when it comes to writing... her vocab is a bit limited and her way of writing doesn't really stand out at all. 

No problemo though, I told her which parts to fix and why it would be better and I think she's trying her best to rewrite it so it's all good. I still need to finish my OWN essay though so I'll work on it a lot tomorrow. Try to finish it and have my friends go over it too just in case. 

Next was Spanish and this class was mostly all used on the students reading their essays out loud to the entire class. Yes, and with my fantastic last name, guess who got to go first. Yup. Lucky me. And you know what, it wasn't all that bad because after I went I was basically free for the rest of the class. 

Finally, in History, all we did was review the huge Sway presentation the teacher made. Yeah, that's it. 

Right, I have to go sleep now so bye bye