Passion Project Update

My passion project has been an ongoing project about how to find your passion.  Currently I am reading Finding your Element by Sir Ken Robinson.  I am doing good with the actual presentation, but I would like to do so much more with the book.  I haven't finished reading it yet and that's where I am lacking.  If I can finish that book within the next three weeks I think I will be good to finish my project on time.  I would also like to do some of the exercises in the book so I must allow time to do those. 
 Like I said earlier I am doing much better than my project last year with the actual presentation because I am doing it throughout the project  instead of all at the end.   I also have to leave time for the actual conclusion of what my passion is, I think that is going to be the hardest part.  I think so because now I have all of this information that I need to focus on one topic.  
The biggest obstacle for me so far is getting the kindle that I downloaded the book on to school.  I probably should have just bought a hard copy so that I could leave it in school.  I am forgetting it at home on Fridays and since it really isn't mine I can't have it for more then the time I need it.  
SO overall I am doing ok,  better than last year, but I still have some catching up to do at home with the reading.  I will try and finish that so that I can start on the fun part!

Outliers

Michael Phelps

 

My outlier is Michael Phelps. He is an amazing Olympic swimmer and is also the world record holder for the most Olympic medals (22) and the most gold medals ever won in a single Olympics. Born on June 30, 1985, in Baltimore, Maryland, Michael Phelps competed in his first Olympics at the age of 15, as part of the U.S. men's swim team, but there was much more that affected how he got there.   Phelps began swimming when his two older sisters, Whitney (born in 1978) and Hilary (born in 1980), joined a local swim team. Kind of like I used to be he was still scared to put his head underwater by the time he was seven.  Bob Bowman, his coach, immediately recognized Phelps's talents and fierce sense of competition and began an intense training regime together.  This, like those people in the hockey league put him ahead of everyone else because of little lead he had which developed into a bigger lead.  

In peak training phases, Phelps swims minimum 80,000 meters a week, which is nearly 50 miles. He practices twice a day, sometimes more if he’s training at altitude. Phelps trains for around five to six hours a day at six days a week. This comes out to be much more than 10,000 hours of practice with the number of years he has been practicing.  I could not find this information in any biographies or interviews of Michael Phelps, but I think that based on how much his mother wants him to go to Rio for the next Olympics that she and his sisters supported him a lot in his career.

Another reason why Michael Phelps is so successful is because he is undoubtedly built for swimming.  A good percent of his success is not only the things that Malcolm Gladwell talked about, but also luck.  For example: his size is 6ft 4in, 6ft 7in arm reach, broad shoulders, and large chest make him extremely difficult to beat. He also has relatively short legs for his height, which give him more power in the water. His knees are double-jointed and his feet can rotate 15 degrees more than possible for the average person. This allows him to straighten fully so that his powerful feet act like flippers. He truly is the "human dolphin."

Sources:

http://www.squidoo.com/michael-phelps-workout-diet-how-the-king-of-swimming-does-it

http://www.biography.com/people/michael-phelps-345192?page=1#synopsis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Phelps#Personal_life



Wooooooooohhoooooooo!!!!!!

Its a new year everyone and that means new blogposts!  So all of you crazed fans out there get ready for some more of ME!

A Hummingbirds Heart

The first page and almost the whole writing talks about how hummingbirds and other animals structures and systems work on a factual level.  There is no real deep meaning of the man who wrote this, Brian Doyle, listing off facts about the hummingbirds metabolism and mitochondria or how many chambers the whales heart has.  But then you realize as you get farther into it, he isn't talking about the structures, he is talking about the feelings and emotions of other animals that we are nowhere even close to understanding except for the fact that they are present.  The fact that we are not the only animal on earth that communicates and shows emotions towards other people.  Brian Doyle also talks about every animal has about two billion heart beats in a lifetime and how you can spend them fast like a hummingbird or slow like a tortoise.  What I really think he meant about this part was it is not how long you have to live, but how you spend your life. Even if you only have two years to live you can spend them just as good as if you had 50 years.  I think that this writing is meant to be discouraging, but it gives me a new view on life and others hearts.  

Whats Worth Knowing

Nothing they teach you in school is worth konowing. I sit in various class rooms six hours a day, five days a week learning complex equations or how to conduct scientific experiments.  I learn everything, but what I will need for life after college.  Schools should teach kids how to interact with others and how to solve group problems.  They should teach us how to work together to get things done and how to find and use our inner creativity.  With these skills all of those useless facts are unnecessary.  I think that in school up until college we should learn basic skills like how to read and write and add.  In elementary and middle school they should also teach us how to express ourselves, talk to others about our feelings, and everything else I just listed above.  Then when we get to college and know what we want to major in we can get more advanced in math or science or writing.  Not everyone is going to want to be a mathematician when there older, so they don't need to learn distance formulas or how to find the perimeter of a octagon now.  There is time for that in college.  Anyway this is all getting back to my point that teachers aren't preparing kids with the right skills for there lives.  What we should learn should not be able to be Googled at the touch of a button and the typing of a few words.

Humanity's Goodness

The person I use as proof that humanity is good is Dr. Seuss.  He is an example of many things including determination, inspiration, and happiness. He used all of these aspects in his life and in his writing.

First, he is an example of determination because of what happened throughout his life.  He struggled a lot when writing his books and getting them published.  Theodore Seuss Geisel was a perfectionist so books could take him a year or two to write, but he never gave up on a book and that is why he has 46 children's books today.  The first book he tried to get published (And to Think that I Saw It on Mulberry Street) was rejected 27 times before he signed a contract to publish it with Mike McClintock.  This shows how Seuss would not give up on his book and on his career.

Secondly, Dr. Seuss is an example of great inspiration and creativity.  He was one of the first to show that you are never to old to be a kid and he did this through his writing.  Kids loved his books because it was something they could understand and connect to and believe in.  Through his books Seuss was doing the opposite of killing creativity, he was nurturing it! There is a seed of creativity in every child's head and Dr. Seuss was helping it blossom.  

Finally, Dr. Seuss is an example of happiness or joy.  He had to go through some pretty hard things in his life, but he always remained happy.  He took much joy in helping others with their problems and making kids happy with his stories such as Cat in the Hat and Horton Hears a Who. These stories were not only making kids happy, but they were teaching them a lesson.  In every book Dr. Seuss has written, if you look real close, there is an underlying life lesson.  For example in the Lorax he teaches kids how deforestation is evil and how we should preserve animals natural habitat.

All in all Dr. Seuss is a perfect example of the goodness in humanity.  He is not the only one, but he certainly had a big impact on the world and will be remembered  and cherished through his writing forever.

Waste Land

I think that the most memorable and most surprising part of this movie was the fact that those people actually had families and homes just like normal people.  They are normal people, just like you and me, but they seem so different because of what they have to struggle through everyday of their life.  They have to support family members and kids all on what little money they have and in such horrible conditions.  Sometimes I think that I have to struggle and my life is hard, but when you put it into perspective I have a paradise life.  I learned that the people in this movie, the pickers, are truly very peaceful because peace is not being in a place without any noise, trouble, or hard work. It means to be in the midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart.
 

If I were a picker I would think nothing of all of the trash at first.  That is all it is to me, trash. It is just worthless junk that people don't want so they throw away. However, after Vik Mumiz showed me what he can do with this trash, how he can transform it into art, I would look differently about everything else that I previously thought was useless. So overall I think that the pickers were feeling that they were part of something big and more important than just picking trash.  They knew they were inspiring millions of people.

I think that if I were the subject of this art it would not be as speacial or meaningful because I have a relatively normal life.  These people had to struggle through life everyday while most like me don't have a hard time getting our next meal.  If I were the subject of this kind of art I think I would deffinetly want to include me involved with my youth group.  Mostly because in April I participate in something called the 30 hour famine.  This is a program we do to help rasie money for third world countries through World Vision.  For 30 hours the youth group fasts at my church while learning about third world countries and what the people have to deal with.  The waste land pickers are a lot like the people in these third world countries that we learn about come to think of it. So that is one thing that I am passionate about and would be included in the art work.

Delicate Picture

 

 

For my delicate picture i decided to take a picture of an raw egg because it is very delicate and I love them.  It is delicate because it will break or crack if you drop it.  This is not the defenition of delicate, but it is still an example of it.

Outside Picture Day

 

These are two of the pictures that I took outside in Roget today.  I like them both because they both show life and at a different angle.  The first one is looking up at the sun through a tree and the second one is almost like the world at a ant's perspective with all the towering buildings.

 

Looking In

 

For my picture I decided to do looking into my junk drawer.  This is a collection of very different items in my room that I don't really need or use anymore, but I still want to keep them.

Color Picture

 

For my picture that represents color I decided to do my mom's sea shell.  I especially like this shell because of its texture and beautiful neon colors.  This shell was obviously painted, but I think the radiant colors fit it well.



Texture

 

For my picture I decided to do one of a bike wheel.  I like the rubbery grooves that mostly mountain bikes have so I wanted this to become my image of texture.  It worked out even better because this is actually a picture of my sisters new bike that she got today because it is her birthday.

Underneath Picture

 

For my underneath picture I chose to capture a photo of water or under water. Now obviously I could not take a picture of myself underwater so I thought I could just take a picture of the water itself. I chose this scene because I am in water or under it most of the time when I am swimming and because it can relate a lot to me personally.  If I had more materials or the right materials I would have liked to taken the photo while the camera is submerged underwater so that you could see it from both angles, but unfortunately I do not have a water proof camera.  I hope you like my picture and I am interested to see what my classmates have come up with.



What the World Eats

(Rogate homework questions)

1.     Germany spent the most at around $500, but that could vary throughout all of Germany and even though what other countries spend is smaller in our U.S. dollars it might be bigger there.

2.     It looked to me like families from Italy, the United States, and Mexico consumed the most food.

3.     I think that the Melander family of Germany had near the most because they had over 50 glass bottles of beer, wine, and other liquids, but the Revis family from the US had the most packaging.

4.     I think the Mendozas family from Guatemala was the healthiest because they had so many fresh vegetables and fruits. It was not the traditional meal you would find in a Shoprite or Bj’s.

5.     I think that the Aboubakar family of Chad had the least healthy diet because there were no vegetables or any kind of protein so I don’t see how that will support their dietary needs.

6.     It is hard to tell how wasteful families are because you don’t know if they will actually eat all the food spread out on that table, but it is very easy to say that people in places like Haiti or Chad are not wasting the small amount of food they have.

7.     I was surprised that a family in Greenland caught their own food, a seal, before they ate it. That is not anything I have ever done before, but it is something that I would be willing to try.

8.     One picture that interested me was the one where the food was delivered by bicycle in the Weitaiwu village in China. I guess that the nearest shop or market wasn’t too far away from the house.

9.     My family’s diet was similar to some of the diets depicted in the pictures, but a complete juxtaposition to others.  I have never really thought about how much food I actually eat in a week by adding it up, but I know it is definitely not like what they get in some of those third world counties. I think it is kind of in the middle or not on either extreme end.

Passion Project

For my passion project I am working with travel and other cool places.  My project is to pick 10 - 20 places that I would like to go and then do some research on each of them, but I am also going to add many pictures of this place which will be the bigger part of the project.  I will either have a city or a specific place.  So one of the main places could be Rome, and then get the highlights of that city or just focus on a specific place in that city like the Colosseum.  Hopefully this project will be interesting and full of pictures with brilliant images and bright color.

Renewable Energy Essay for Teen Ink

"Our dependence on fossil fuels amounts to global pyromania and the only fire extinguisher we have at our disposal is renewable energy." – Hermann Scheer, President of Eurosolar (The European Association for Renewable Energy) and General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy.

"There is one forecast of which you can already be sure: someday renewable energy will be the only way for people to satisfy their energy needs.” – Herman Scheer

“Once the renewable infrastructure is built, the fuel is free forever. Unlike carbon-based fuels, the wind and the sun and the earth itself provide fuel that is free, in amounts that are effectively limitless." – Al Gore, Vice President to Bill Clinton.

Due to the growing issues with the fossil fuels we use today, many are considering and using different energy sources that are new, clean, and everlasting.  The popular forms of renewable energy today are solar, wind, and water (hydro).  These are the forms of energy that will support us for the rest of our lives.  From reading the quotes above many opinions can be taken, but one thing is for sure, oil isn’t going to be the answer to our energy necessities for much longer.  One day all of the oil is going to disappear and we are going to be forced to switch to renewable energy. To make life easier on future generations we should start moving away from oil now and towards renewable energy’s. 

One major advantage of renewable energy’s is that they are unlimited. They are therefore sustainable and so will never run out. They are unlimited because the source of their power is from nature which will be present as long as earth can sustain life.  A second advantage is because renewable energy is clean energy the equipment generally requires much less maintenance than traditional oil processing. Since there is no fuel involved in renewable energy it reduces the costs of operation.

Even more importantly, renewable energy produces little or no waste products such as carbon dioxide or other chemical pollutants, so it has minimal impact on the environment.  The elimination of these byproducts will lead to a cleaner environment and reduced global warming.

There is also a very big disadvantage from the use of fossil fuels, global warming.  Global warming is when the pollutants from our cars, trucks and any other engine reach the protective ozone layer that shields us from the sun’s harmful rays.  The pollutants break up and destroy this ozone layer letting those harmful rays through. Those rays then heat the earth and are now causing the polar ice caps to melt which can cause major global flooding in years from now.  This is also why 2012 was the hottest year ever recorded, on average, in U.S. history.

Through our experience with oil for the past hundred years it is now clear that an alternative source of energy is required for us to maintain our way of life.  Renewable energy is the best long term source for power because it is unlimited, clean and freely available all around the earth.  Renewable energy is the only hope for the future of the world and every single person that lives on it.

http://www.solarschools.net/resources/stuff/advantages_and_disadvantages.aspx

http://grist.org/news/2012-the-hottest-year-in-u-s-history-was-one-of-the-coldest-years-this-century/

2012 Relfections

In 2012 I learned a lot about loss.  I learned how to get through it and help others when they are suffering from it.  I have to admit 2012 wasn't a very good year for me.  This is supposed to be such a wonderful country and yet we have:

March 31, 2012—A gunman opened fire on a crowd of mourners at a North Miami, Florida, funeral home, killing two people and injuring 12 others.
April 2, 2012—A 43-year-old former student at Oikos University in Oakland, California, walked into his former school and killed seven people, “execution-style.” Three people were wounded.
April 6, 2012—Two men went on a deadly shooting spree in Tulsa, Oklahoma, shooting black men at random in an apparently racially motivated attack. Three men died and two were wounded.
May 29, 2012—A man in Seattle, Washington, opened fire in a coffee shop and killed five people and then himself.
July 20, 2012—James Holmes enters a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises and opens fire with a semi-automatic weapon; twelve people are killed and fifty-eight are wounded.
December 14, 2012—One man, and possibly more, murders a reported twenty-six people at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, including twenty children, before killing himself.
(Just to name a few, there is a full list at http://www.thenation.com/blog/171774/fifteen-us-mass-shootings-happened-2012-84-dead  if you would like to see all 16 major shootings in the U.S.)
So I guess this wasn't that great of a year for lots of people, but it wasn't the only downs to the year, and I have a couple of personal downers too. First off my grandmom moved in with us, which I loved and I'm sure she enjoyed the company, but she, at the time,was struggling with cancer so it was very hard for her the year that she stayed with us until she passed away in the summer. There was also my grandpa who died earlier in the year in California.  Another was family friends parents died within 2 weeks of each other.  In addition some of my closest friends moved to places like Tennessee and Texas.  Loss is hard to live with but I think it has helpped me a lot throughout the year, made me stronger in a way.  But don't get me wrong the U.S. has had many great accomplishments like taking out Osama bin laden and ending the war in Iraq, but still I feel like the world is turning into one big battleground with all of the wars and deaths surrounding us.
I like to make new years resolutions, but I almost never keep them. BUT!!!! I will try this year so here they are:

• Drop under 29 seconds in my fifty freestyle
• Survive the next end of the world
• Drop under a 1:09 in my  hundred freestyle
• Follow my dreams
• Go 2,450 yards or more in my 30 minute swim
• Get better at the Tuba
• Graduate high school and go to college
• Don't stink at life
• Take at least 2 honors classes
• Solve world hunger