Tuesday, May 6, 2014
The Big Crunch
I thought that iQuest was going to be like work experience except for something that I was passionate about, but it was so much more than that. I learned a lot more than I expected to, not just about my iQuest interest area, but about success in general. I learned about things that ranged from time management, to time travel. It was a great mix and it was probably the best class I've ever been in because I actually got to study what I wanted to. I enjoyed most the fact that I got to use school time to do something that I love. I was most productive when I got to read the book because it really stimulated my mind and I got to contemplate things that did not exist to me before. In reality, I was doing far less, but I was learning much more during the period when I read the book. I learned about the different types of telescopes and I learned about different types of stars and nebulae. I learned that I believe alien life exists because I had no opinion before. I learned how to be a college student I think. I really wish I did more floor shifts at Chabot so that I could teach more directly instead of using the telescopes. I would give myself a 7/10 in learning my iQuest area because I feel like this is sort of a confusing topic and I think I handled learning it pretty well. However, I had some opportunities that passed me by because of things like my band, my social life, and work. This experience gave me very key skills for my future. I now know how to network, manage time, meet deadlines, use prezi, write a resume, have a positive outlook, and get ahead of my competition in the future. iQuest will definitely help my future. I recommend this program to anyone who is passionate and curious about something, but it isn't for every high school student. I recommend it to those types of people because if you are passionate and curious, then it is an easy A, but I also recommend it because it teaches some very important. I had an informative and easy time in iQuest and I would do it again, but I am too excited to go to college.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Digital Workplace
I know how to use very basic computer applications like word, powerpoint, presi, and spreadsheet on google docs. I know how to use very basic recording softwares like audacity and garage band. Also, I know how to use a software called Starry Night which shows me the sky and the objects in it. As far as devices go, I can use computers with any OS. I now have owned a computer with Windows, Linux, and Mac OS, so I have basic knowledge on how to use all three of them. I can use droid and apple devices as well. At work I had to learn two computer softwares. One is called Micros which is where you input food orders. The other software is called Open Table and it keeps track of reservations and other important information. I use these whenever I am at work. I use my computer almost everyday to access the internet to do research or just for recreational use. I use the recording softwares and Starry Night purely for recreational purposes. I probably need to learn how to use presi and spreadsheets a little bit better because I am not very comfortable with either one. I haven't needed more than any of these yet. I always learn technology as I go because it is easy and hands-on. I am expecting to need to know much more in college, but I do not know exactly what yet. I have heard of autocad which is some type of engineering software that I may need to learn.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Attitude
Happiness
is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount
of work is the same. ~Francesca Reigler
I chose this quote because I agree with it. I think that there is no way to avoid a situation, but you can only affect your own outlook. The thing that I love about this is that it kind of supports optimists and pessimists. The optimist would argue that you can change how you feel and can become happy and strong. However, a pessimist could argue the point that no matter what you do, the work amount will not change and therefore, the attitude towards the work does not matter. I would say that happiness does come from the attitude that you have about things. I don't necessarily think that it has to be a 'positive' attitude, but more essentially, a progressive attitude. I think that any type of negative attitude does affect our level of happiness in a negative way, but I would also say that every person varies in how each individual 'attitude' affects them. I don't believe that there is a way to analyze or categorize how an attitude affects a person.
Progression
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Bucket Filling
Three strategies that Rath advises to fill your own bucket are to shine light on what's right, make best friends, and give unexpectedly. He says that in order to keep your bucket full you must emphasize what is going right. We always are looking at flaws and what is wrong, but we never stop to think what we are doing right. He uses the example of a student getting an F and an A. Most parents will jump straight to the F and how it must be improved. They rarely will start with how proud they are about the A that was received. He says that if the things that are done right are acknowledged, then it can keep your own bucket full as well as other peoples' buckets.
Another thing that he suggests is to make best friends. This will also help keep your bucket full. He gives the example of commuting to work everyday. If you have a friend to commute with, then commuting becomes more fun and therefore will give you more positive moments. This ultimately will contribute to a fuller bucket.
The third strategy that Rath explains is giving unexpectedly. A poll that was taken shows that most people prefer an unexpected gift as opposed to one that is already expected. He says that if a gift is expected, it just becomes something that has potential to disappoint you. When you have high expectations, you tend to be disappointed more easily because you are more likely not to get what you are expecting to. However, with no expectations, you eliminate potential for disappointment and this fills your bucket.
I think that this video and all of these studies are actually very interesting. I don't disagree with anything that he has brought up. I think that doing things for other people actually is the key to filling your own bucket. I think the most interesting thing that was mentioned in the video was the fact that there seems to be an upper limit of 13:1 good moments to bad moments. The ratios that were given were very intriguing to me. It's weird that we can actually quantify good moments and bad moments and then study the numbers and watch the trends. He says that in a marriage the ratio needs to be about 5:1 and in an organization it needs to be about 3:1 in order for these relations to be successful. That is why I am so interested in the upper limit. It would make sense that you cannot have too many good moments because I think in anything and everything, there must be a balance. I also thought it was interesting that a full bucket can change people physically also. He says that people with a full bucket have more helper T cells which are a crucial part of the immune system. This literally proves that having a positive attitude in life contributes to your physical health.
I would say I mostly am a bucket filler because I am very positive about things. I almost always try shine light on what's right and pick out the good things in a situation instead of the bad things. I can't always do this, but I think the majority of the time, I do.
Another thing that he suggests is to make best friends. This will also help keep your bucket full. He gives the example of commuting to work everyday. If you have a friend to commute with, then commuting becomes more fun and therefore will give you more positive moments. This ultimately will contribute to a fuller bucket.
The third strategy that Rath explains is giving unexpectedly. A poll that was taken shows that most people prefer an unexpected gift as opposed to one that is already expected. He says that if a gift is expected, it just becomes something that has potential to disappoint you. When you have high expectations, you tend to be disappointed more easily because you are more likely not to get what you are expecting to. However, with no expectations, you eliminate potential for disappointment and this fills your bucket.
I think that this video and all of these studies are actually very interesting. I don't disagree with anything that he has brought up. I think that doing things for other people actually is the key to filling your own bucket. I think the most interesting thing that was mentioned in the video was the fact that there seems to be an upper limit of 13:1 good moments to bad moments. The ratios that were given were very intriguing to me. It's weird that we can actually quantify good moments and bad moments and then study the numbers and watch the trends. He says that in a marriage the ratio needs to be about 5:1 and in an organization it needs to be about 3:1 in order for these relations to be successful. That is why I am so interested in the upper limit. It would make sense that you cannot have too many good moments because I think in anything and everything, there must be a balance. I also thought it was interesting that a full bucket can change people physically also. He says that people with a full bucket have more helper T cells which are a crucial part of the immune system. This literally proves that having a positive attitude in life contributes to your physical health.
I would say I mostly am a bucket filler because I am very positive about things. I almost always try shine light on what's right and pick out the good things in a situation instead of the bad things. I can't always do this, but I think the majority of the time, I do.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Essential Question
"Is it possible for life to exist on other planets? Why? How?"
I had a hard time thinking of a question that I liked enough to use. A lot of them were either too general or too specific. I like this question a lot because there actually is an answer. There is plenty of scientific evidence that shows it is possible. My friend helped me come up with this question because like I said the ones that I was coming up with were way too in depth or were too broad. I want to do more research on the topic and write about why some may believe that it is impossible and also why science says that it is possible. I also want to do this research paper because I really do not know where I stand on this issue. Like I said, it is possible, but does it actually exist? I will not answer that question in the paper, but I will most likely touch on it a little. I am curious to see if I will finally form an opinion after I write this paper.
I think the paper is going to be extremely easy to write and I think I will enjoy writing it. I think it will be cool to finally have something that I wrote myself that informs people on such a big topic. I've always wanted to write an informative paper on something that I am actually interested in and now I can. I also think a lot of people are misinformed on this topic also. Not everyone knows what is being done 24 hours a day in the field of searching for alien life. I'll learn something new even if I don't form my own opinion.
I had a hard time thinking of a question that I liked enough to use. A lot of them were either too general or too specific. I like this question a lot because there actually is an answer. There is plenty of scientific evidence that shows it is possible. My friend helped me come up with this question because like I said the ones that I was coming up with were way too in depth or were too broad. I want to do more research on the topic and write about why some may believe that it is impossible and also why science says that it is possible. I also want to do this research paper because I really do not know where I stand on this issue. Like I said, it is possible, but does it actually exist? I will not answer that question in the paper, but I will most likely touch on it a little. I am curious to see if I will finally form an opinion after I write this paper.
I think the paper is going to be extremely easy to write and I think I will enjoy writing it. I think it will be cool to finally have something that I wrote myself that informs people on such a big topic. I've always wanted to write an informative paper on something that I am actually interested in and now I can. I also think a lot of people are misinformed on this topic also. Not everyone knows what is being done 24 hours a day in the field of searching for alien life. I'll learn something new even if I don't form my own opinion.
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Social Issue
One issue that I think needs to be fixed is the issue of scarcity of water in the world. I think it needs to be fixed because I know I have heard that it actually would not cost that much money to do. According to thirstproject.org, it only costs between $7,800 and $20,000 to build a fresh water well. It would also change the world drastically. It would allow for third world countries to finally develop to the best of their abilities. I guess what I am getting at is since the world is so concerned about money, this would be the best 'bang for the buck' and would also help the most amount of people.
This problem really does seem simple to me. The hard part about it is getting people to give up their money. It seriously is such a small amount of money that I think people would be surprised. There are 314 million people in the United States and the average amount for a well is $13,400. That means to build one well would be 4/100,000 of a dollar per person. To build 50,000 wells it would only cost a little over two dollars per person. This is only looking at the United States. It is only a matter of getting people to spend their money. The solution that I see is simple taxation. The government would have to tax people an extra 6/1,000 of a dollar a day, on average, in order to raise all of the money needed in one year. I don't know exactly how many wells would be needed to actually put an end to world thirst, but even if it took 1,000,000 wells, within years the problem would be gone completely.
This problem should be solved for obvious reasons such as to end world thirst, to help out humanity, and to give third world countries a push start. In my opinion if America actually considers itself a world leader then it should have fixed this problem decades ago. Obviously there are other things at role than just money, but I chose to look specifically at the money because that is what seems to speak loudest to people. It is extremely cheap to end world thirst.
This problem really does seem simple to me. The hard part about it is getting people to give up their money. It seriously is such a small amount of money that I think people would be surprised. There are 314 million people in the United States and the average amount for a well is $13,400. That means to build one well would be 4/100,000 of a dollar per person. To build 50,000 wells it would only cost a little over two dollars per person. This is only looking at the United States. It is only a matter of getting people to spend their money. The solution that I see is simple taxation. The government would have to tax people an extra 6/1,000 of a dollar a day, on average, in order to raise all of the money needed in one year. I don't know exactly how many wells would be needed to actually put an end to world thirst, but even if it took 1,000,000 wells, within years the problem would be gone completely.
This problem should be solved for obvious reasons such as to end world thirst, to help out humanity, and to give third world countries a push start. In my opinion if America actually considers itself a world leader then it should have fixed this problem decades ago. Obviously there are other things at role than just money, but I chose to look specifically at the money because that is what seems to speak loudest to people. It is extremely cheap to end world thirst.
Sunday, February 9, 2014
The Fabric of the Cosmos
I read a book called The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene. The book is broken into five parts. The first two parts focused mainly on what we know about space-time and how we learned it. It is a combination of a history lesson and physics lecture. In the first two parts, Greene answers very difficult questions through quantum physics, classical physics, and general relativity. This is an essential part of the book. These three fundamental types of science are completely unique and could not be more different from each other, but they all offer some of the same explanations for things. Greene asks the following question towards the end of part two: "Is science unable to grasp a fundamental quality of time that the human mind embraces as readily as the lungs take in air, or does the human mind impose on time a quality of its own making, one that is artificial and that hence does not show up in the laws of physics?" (141). Like I mentioned before, Greene does his best to articulate his opinion based on several different sciences. The book is filled with questions that can be answered philosophically, religiously, and scientifically.
In the third part of the book, Greene begins to combine what he taught us about space-time, with modern cosmology. Cosmology is the study of the origin, evolution, and fate of the universe. This is a beautiful part of the book. I finally was able to envision how quantum physics and astrophysics are heavily related to one another. In the last chapter of this section he describes that since the Big Bang was a quantum event (extremely small), it was governed by quantum physics initially, but then when inflation occurred, these quantum laws became magnified and everything we see in the universe today is a consequence of the magnified quantum activity.
Part four of the book was definitely my favorite part. It is called Origins and Unification. Greene is known as one of the main proponents of Superstring theory. This is the part of the book where he explains why he believes strings are the answer to unify all of our physical laws. He gives a vivid description of what higher dimensions would actually look like and where exactly they would be since we cannot see them. String theory in a nutshell basically says that every thing that there is, is some variation of a rudimentary building block called a string. The strings vibrate in different ways to produce different particles like electrons or photons. They also would be responsible for the four forces of the universe. String theory is my favorite thing to visualize. Greene concludes the section with this, "At the ultramicroscopic level, the universe would be akin to a string symphony vibrating matter into existence". Next time you hear someone say 'good vibes', you'll be able to visualize it.
The final part of the book is a speculation of what is to come. He goes into topics such as time travel and teleporters. My favorite thing about this part is the fact that we know how to do these things, but we cannot do them because we are limited by our technology.
The book relates to my iQuest project because it explains what the arena of space-time is and it gives me a better understanding of astronomy and the physical structures of the universe. I would recommend the book to anyone who has the attention span to read it. It was pretty challenging for me at times and I have some experience with these types of books. Overall, it was a great read.
In the third part of the book, Greene begins to combine what he taught us about space-time, with modern cosmology. Cosmology is the study of the origin, evolution, and fate of the universe. This is a beautiful part of the book. I finally was able to envision how quantum physics and astrophysics are heavily related to one another. In the last chapter of this section he describes that since the Big Bang was a quantum event (extremely small), it was governed by quantum physics initially, but then when inflation occurred, these quantum laws became magnified and everything we see in the universe today is a consequence of the magnified quantum activity.
Part four of the book was definitely my favorite part. It is called Origins and Unification. Greene is known as one of the main proponents of Superstring theory. This is the part of the book where he explains why he believes strings are the answer to unify all of our physical laws. He gives a vivid description of what higher dimensions would actually look like and where exactly they would be since we cannot see them. String theory in a nutshell basically says that every thing that there is, is some variation of a rudimentary building block called a string. The strings vibrate in different ways to produce different particles like electrons or photons. They also would be responsible for the four forces of the universe. String theory is my favorite thing to visualize. Greene concludes the section with this, "At the ultramicroscopic level, the universe would be akin to a string symphony vibrating matter into existence". Next time you hear someone say 'good vibes', you'll be able to visualize it.
The final part of the book is a speculation of what is to come. He goes into topics such as time travel and teleporters. My favorite thing about this part is the fact that we know how to do these things, but we cannot do them because we are limited by our technology.
The book relates to my iQuest project because it explains what the arena of space-time is and it gives me a better understanding of astronomy and the physical structures of the universe. I would recommend the book to anyone who has the attention span to read it. It was pretty challenging for me at times and I have some experience with these types of books. Overall, it was a great read.
Sunday, January 12, 2014
High School
The past four years have definitely had their ups and downs, but overall things have been pretty smooth. I'd say my worst year was my freshman year. I wish I would have gotten better grades, but I am pretty happy with my grades through the rest of the years. I wish I had gotten an A in trig the first semester because it would have given me a 4.2 for two semesters in a row. I am happy with who I have become in the past years. I've learned to be myself and not care what people label you as or assume about you. I am very happy with the friends I have made also. I know I will keep in touch with all of them in the future.
This past semester has been surprisingly pretty easy. I don't have all A's, but I do still have a 4.0 weighted GPA which I am happy with. I am not dissatisfied with my grades, but if I put a little more effort I might be able to get a 4.2 again.
I am looking forward to graduating and leaving high school. I think grad night will be fun and senior picnic, but I really want to just be done with high school. I can't wait to have new experiences with new people. I want to enjoy the last few months with my family and friends and then I want a fresh start.
I plan on attending a four year college that is most likely not in California. I applied to the following schools:
Purdue University
University of Minnesota at Twin Cities *
Arizona State
Northern Arizona University
University of New Mexico
Trinity Univeristy, Texas
UC Santa Cruz
UC Irvine
UC Santa Barbara
CSU Long Beach
San Francisco State
My Goals:
I will learn how to locate the Andromeda Galaxy at the Chabot Space Center before it sets and is no longer visible at night (it will set in the next month or so).
I will read The Hidden Reality by Brian Greene before next semester's finals.
I will view and photograph Mars when it is in opposition this coming April.
This past semester has been surprisingly pretty easy. I don't have all A's, but I do still have a 4.0 weighted GPA which I am happy with. I am not dissatisfied with my grades, but if I put a little more effort I might be able to get a 4.2 again.
I am looking forward to graduating and leaving high school. I think grad night will be fun and senior picnic, but I really want to just be done with high school. I can't wait to have new experiences with new people. I want to enjoy the last few months with my family and friends and then I want a fresh start.
I plan on attending a four year college that is most likely not in California. I applied to the following schools:
Purdue University
University of Minnesota at Twin Cities *
Arizona State
Northern Arizona University
University of New Mexico
Trinity Univeristy, Texas
UC Santa Cruz
UC Irvine
UC Santa Barbara
CSU Long Beach
San Francisco State
My Goals:
I will learn how to locate the Andromeda Galaxy at the Chabot Space Center before it sets and is no longer visible at night (it will set in the next month or so).
I will read The Hidden Reality by Brian Greene before next semester's finals.
I will view and photograph Mars when it is in opposition this coming April.
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