Appreciation

Yesterday, the internet went down for approximately 2 hours.  I never thought i would be so greatly impacted by such a small occurrence, but I was.  It completely restricted what I could do. I had to e-mail a social studies project to one of my teachers and research for a essay in science.  Without the internet, I couldn't do any of this, not to mention chatting with my friends.

I never really thought about how important the internet was until yesterday.  Until then, I always took it for granted and thought it was a given to have.  I never gave a thought about how hard life would be without any internet.  Now I finally appreciate the luxury of having a personal internet connection in my house.  

Now you may be wondering why I talk about such a minor event.  Well, this led me to realize that I take many things for granted without a thought about what life would be without it.  I'm going to use my iPod as another example.  At a first thought, it may seem like an unneeded luxury to have an iPod touch.  It is somewhat unneeded; I survived perfectly well without it in fifth grade.  But naturally, I slowly began to take advantage of it. I now use it for many daily activities like planning, communications, and much more.  Without my iPod, I wouldn't know what time to go outside to meet my friend and walk to school, I might forget the dates of major events, I couldn't listen to music without opening my laptop.  

My theory, which I am naming the expansion theory of humans, says that we don't need many things that we think are important to life, but after we get a luxury, we slowly incorporate it into our daily life so much that we can't live without it.

Pointless fun

When I think about it, there are many things that I do in my life that are, when you think about it, very pointless, yet somehow entertaining.

Let's take the easy button for example.  It is Staples' signature item, but all it is is a huge red button that says "that was easy" when pressed.  Yet, this button is something many people want, or already have. Pointless? Definitely. Fun? Well, it isn't really "fun", but it is something that can be used over and over again.  Without fail, it can bring some laughs, some witty remarks, and some groans every time it is pressed.

The world is filled with these little items or habits that are a simple waste of time. At the time of doing these pointlessly fun things, it seems perfectly logical.  But after doing so, when you look back on it, it seems like a waste of time.

So the question is; should we continue doing this or not?  I suppose it really depends on the situation you are in at the moment.  If you are pressed for time, and will fail a class just because if you procrastinate a bit, then, by pure logic and common sense, you should not waste time with this pointless fun.  But if you are sitting on a couch with nothing to do, then go ahead! Nothing bad will come out of it, and you will be instantly entertained.

Facebook

Facebook, the almighty website that everyone who is someone uses.  What makes it so addicting? 

To know the answer to that question, we have to back up a little.  Mark Zuckerburg created Facebook as a social networking website to basically follow your friends around.  Facebook's users use it to update their every action, from baking a cake, to getting a girlfriend.  

My theory of why Facebook is addicting is that everyone wants to know what their friends are doing, follow around the person they like.  No one wants to be left behind on this informations and be clueless about present events.  Another possible reason Facebook is addicting is that people always want to respond to their messages, or a notifications on time so that people don't see them as a slow person.

The reason I check Facebook every 10 minutes is to see what people are doing, and respond to messages and/or notifications.  I also comment on a few statuses.

Facebook is such a simple site that would seem very boring, but is actually extremely addicting.

Rain

Today was one of the few rainy days in Southern California, and it sure was strange.  The day started with a constant drizzle, not enough to soak your clothes, but quite enough to make shoes squeak on the tiled floor of the classrooms.  The downfall of water was refreshing on my skin as I looked up and pondered the possibilities of a strong downpour.

The rain continued like this until about 12:00.  At this time, I was in science listening to the teacher talk about suspensions and colloids.  There was a boom and everyone shook with a start.  It felt like the sky ripped in half with earthquakes shaking the floor.  The teacher stood in awe of the power in that boom of thunder.  The classroom burst into chatter about the thunder.  After the class calmed down, the teacher stared teaching.  After a minute, the sky cried from the shock of the lightning, and let loose millions of its hard earned tears.  They hit the ground, splashing everywhere without a care for anything but reaching the ground.  The sound was like what would happen if the whole class started clicking their pens, only more thunderous.  The people of my class watched in awe, then realized that they needed to bring their backpacks in.  With permission from the teacher, waves of people from my class swarmed to save their backpacks from the wetting assault of rain.  Another few minutes after we brought our backpacks in, the rain stopped.  The clouds have recovered from the shock of lightning, all was well in the sky again.

The day went on, with intervals of sudden, violent downpours and sunny skies.  When the day ended and i finally reached home, the sky was sunny.  I finished my homework, and went downstairs to eat.  It was still sunny.  A few minutes after we started eating, a flash from outside lit up our dinner table, and then came the thunderous boom.  The cloud's life was yet again disturbed.  I thought the downpour was going to last thirty minutes at the most, but it lasted through dinner, and even more.  Our meal was disrupted by flashes and booms.  I finished my dinner, and went upstairs to carefully study the rain.  I looked outside, and saw our drainpipes over flooding, pouring excess water onto our roof and down into the sewers.  The droplets moved at an angle, because of the minor wind outside.  When a droplet hit the roof, it created a miniature splash, a dot to the human eye.  Together, it seemed as though our roof was decorated by a constantly changing polka dot pattern.

The sound of the rain is a natural phenomenon.  Each impact to the ground creates a tapping sound, muffled by the walls of my house.  Each drop that hits the roof sends out a louder sound, with the occasional big droplet of water that creates a click.  As a harmony, it creates music without tone, like the biggest orchestra in the world consisted only of percussion.

Listening, watching the rain is true bliss.  There is so much to see, so much to hear.  It is an induplicable experience.

Food

Food is a very basic necessity in peoples life, and not only to keep them alive.  


One way that food really benefits people of all shapes and sizes is that it it a classic part of quotidian culture.  Many people can identify where someone lives just by the types of foods he or she eats.  For example, if you eat dumplings daily, you are most likely chinese.  A person's personality can also be determined by his cooking, to some extent.  If someone cooks macaroni and cheese for important guests, you can infer that that person is lazy and disrespectful.  But if someone cooks some roast turkey for a neighbor, it is easy to tell that this person is hardworking and kind.  


Another BIG reason that food is extremely important to an average person's life is that food provides a lot of variety, and puts some new purpose into life.  It's really interesting to try all different kinds of foods, and see how they taste.  I can say that I like Japanese food, and then I can try all the different kinds, and I would find enjoyment in eating and trying all those different foods.  Imagine life with no food, a life that you never could eat. How boring would that be? There would be no excitement in choosing what to eat, less variety in life, less excuses to go to the mall with you friends.  Life without food would be like hot chocolate without sugar.

My fellow Asians love food.  It's almost customary for us to walk around, asking for extra food.  Some of my friends even say they can't live without rice.  Even today, on a weekend at home, one of my friends almost dedicated the entire day to watching the food channel.  At a world-wide scale, Chinese people made a whole new way of eating, using chopsticks, when they could have simply used a spoon and moved on with life.  What makes Asians love food so much? The world may never know.

Food is an amazing part of everyday life. No one could live without it. (literally and figuratively)

Happy Box?

One major hole of the happy box's legitimacy is how it makes you happy.

The way to make me happy is to fill my life with friends, family, love, reached goals, unanswered questions, and money.  Apparently, the happy box provides none of those, but it still makes me happy, somehow.  How does happiness get artificially produced?  I know that it is just a unreal thing that I should imagine, but I can not fathom how this provides quotidian happiness.  I can not imagine being happy any other way besides the way I become happy right now.  Just imagine sitting on a chair in a box grinning like a madman and feeling like you just won twenty gold medals in the Olympics.  Strange much?  I really can't understand how it works, so I can't begin to answer the question of whether or not I should go into a happy box.

Happy Box, with an even better understanding of what it is

So apparently the happy box actually gives you a lot more happiness than I thought it would.  That made me reconsider my thoughts.

So if I were asked to go into a happy box, I would definitely ponder it for a while.  At the moment, I really can't decide whether or not to go into the happy box.

It really wouldn't matter.  If you stayed out of the box and just lived your life, it would be fun, with downtimes and really fun times too.  There would be a lot of variety too, which makes life more interesting.  It would be your daily life.  Getting into the happy box would just be a monotone happiness, not much variety, but still really fun.

I didn't have much to write about this, so I'm going to write another post questioning the happy box.

Happy Box, different thoughts...

Okay, a bit of misunderstanding between me and Hans there, so here is the actual article he was asking for.

So, if someone asked me to step into a "happy box", I would not.

I am getting a little ahead of myself there.  A happy box is apparently a boxlike enclosure that you can go into, and it immediately makes you happy.  But being happy means only sitting there, having an artificial happiness overtake you.

I wouldn't step in the happy box because of a few reasons.  First of all, an artificial happiness never makes you as happy as happiness that is earned through hard work.  If you get a really good score on your math test because you studied really hard for it, you get a amount of happiness like no other.  If you get artificially happy inside a box, then you will be happy, staring at a wall.  Think about it, it is really strange and unsatisfying.  Another reason that I wouldn't step in to the happy box is that it would be really boring.  Boring and happy contradict each other, but if you think about it, it really does make sense.  If you are happy because you are forever dropping from the sky with the excitement like that of when you ride a roller coaster, then you will eventually get bored because it would feel normal falling from the sky, and you would yearn for hard ground under your feet.  It is the same for the happy box.  Eventually, you are going to get very bored sitting in a box,and will yearn for pain and suffering.  That brings me to yet another point.  There would be no pain an suffering inside the happy box.  That may sound strange, to actually want to be hurt and suffer, but it is true.  For example, when I was a small child, I always took leisure time and fun for granted.  But as I grew up and had more homework and less time to idle, I began to appreciate rest and playtime.  I wouldn't have that happiness if it wasn't for all the countless hours of working.

The happy box does have some benefits at first, but as you stay in there longer and longer, you will realize that it isn't as good as living life how it normally is.

Happy Box

If someone randomly came up to me and asked if I wanted to make my life happy and perfect, I would actually choose to go in.

Why?  Well what's bad about being not happy?  To me, being happy is being showered with love, money, yoyos and some friends.  What is really bad about that?  Being happy means having good friends, some love and support, and everything you ever wanted.  What can be better than that?  I can't find anything bad about walking into a "happy box".

Sorry for not blogging the last few days and making this post so short... life was pretty hectic.

If everyone in the world was the same

I think that some version of the book's world is not present in today's world.  Anyways, here's today's post.

While I was reading "Brave new world", I was thinking what would happen if everyone in the world was the same.

There would be many good parts of everyone being the same.  One is that everyone will understand each other and there will be no disputes about anything.  It would be a peaceful world with no one killing other people, and no hate.  Also, everything you make can be the same, because whatever you like, everyone else likes, so you don't have to make so many different kinds sell only sell a few.  Another great part about this is that everyone will be as smart as one another and everyone will earn the same salary, therefore no country will have economical problems and everyone will treat each other as equals.  

There will obviously be many problems with this too.  One of the most prominent problems of everyone being the same is that it is extremely difficult to identify people from one another.  People will be looking at people and identifying them by their name tags.  It will be pretty chaotic.  Also, since they all have the same interests, they will all be arguing about who should be what.  For example, everyone would want to be the CEO of a certain company, but no one will want to be part of any other company.  Everyone would be arguing using the same logic, then the world will get nowhere.  It would also really get boring because you already know what everyone's reply is going to be, and there is no variety in anything.

In the end, it probably won't be a good idea to make everyone in the world the same.

Stuff I've been writing for school.

I've been a bit busy lately, so I couldn't blog as often... I am reading "Brave New World" right now. Anyways, here are the things I have been writing for english ( Parts of it are left out because I had to handwrite it in school).

I was born at 12:36 pm, in the Swedish hospital in Seattle, Washington , on October 23,1997.  When I was born, I weighed in at 7 pounds, and 15 ounces.  I was 21 inches tall at the time.  My name, Andy is made after Andrew Grove, person of the year in 1997, who invented the transistor.  I was born in the same hospital as Bill Gates, and only five days ahead (not counting the years).

I have changed a lot over the years.  One major change in personality is that I’m a lot less shy than I was before.  I used to be scared of every new person I came across, but now I say hi, or just walk past.  Also, I have a better attitude to everything.  When I was smaller, I used to never want to try anything new.  Now, I try everything that my common sense allows me to.  I also changed a lot in terms of looks.  I obviously grew taller, and I also grew skinnier.  There  is a distinct difference when I compare my 6 th grade id-card photo to myself today.  I changed a whole lot since 5 th grade.

My days are filled with doing what I like and what I don’t.  One thing I really like to do is play with yoyos.  In fact, my main hobby is collecting yoyos and playing with them.  I really like to yoyo because it doesn’t require much, which allows you to yoyo whenever you want, and it makes me feel really accomplished whenever I land a new trick.  It is also really fun to collect yoyos because I get to see and try out all the different kinds.  My favorite pastime is surfing the web.  I often like to go on Facebook to see what my friends are doing, or check what new yoyos came out.  My favorite subject at school is definitely math.  Math is a really great subject because there are no ambiguous answers, and because it doesn’t require much memorization.  As long as you get a concept, you can solve almost any problem that relies on the concept.  I also like to swim and play tennis, but those are more secondary.  I really don’t like to learn Chinese at Chinese school.  Chinese is a very non- modern language.  It takes a long time to type out.  It just isn’t very well adapted to the modern world.  Also, it is harder to learn Chinese.  Every word in Chinese has to be memorized to read or write it.  It isn’t like English where you can just sound out a word and immediately be able to read and write it.  There isn’t much more that I actually dislike a lot.

Well, these are three of the eight paragraphs I wrote for school.

Math Not First Person

Math is an amazing subject, both the class and math itself (for this post, I'm only going to write about math itself).

Math is an awesome subject for several reasons.  First of all, an answer to a math problem is either right or wrong and there are no "ifs".  For other subjects like English or social studies, there can be more than one right answer.  For example, if a teacher asks a student why Julius Caesar wanted to be in control, the student could either say, "because he liked to be in control", or the student can say, "because he thought that his ways of looking at how to control the government were better than other rulers' ways".  There are many more things the student could say in response, but the teacher is obviously only looking for one.  If the student said that Julius Caesar simply felt like it, it would have to be counted right, either though it is not what the question was asking for.  Meanwhile in math, an answer is either right or wrong, and there are no loopholes.  Another reason math is great is because of its simplicity.  As long as one knows a concept, then they can solve any other problem that uses that concept.  For other subjects, a student would have to memorize everything bit by bit.

Math is really a lot more interesting than any other subject.  The learning process for math can actually be counted as fun.

Math...

I really like math, both the class and math itself (for this post, I'm only going to write about math itself).

Math is an awesome subject for several reasons.  First of all, an answer to a math problem is either right or wrong and there are no "ifs".  For other subjects like English or social studies, there can be more than one right answer.  For example, if a teacher asks a student why Julius Caesar wanted to be in control, the student could either say, "because he liked to be in control", or the student can say, "because he thought that his ways of looking at how to control the government were better than other rulers' ways".  There are many more things the student could say in response, but the teacher is obviously only looking for one.  If the student said that Julius Caesar simply felt like it, it would have to be counted right, either though it is not what the question was asking for.  Meanwhile in math, an answer is either right or wrong, and there are no loopholes.  Another reason I like math is because of its simplicity.  As long as you know a concept, then you can solve any other problem that uses that concept.  For other subjects, you have to memorize everything bit by bit.

Math is a really amazing subject, and it is extremely easy to learn.  that makes math one of my favorite subjects.

Why I dislike Chinese School

First of all, I dislike the language of Chinese and the process of learning  it.  I am now going to write about why I dislike Chinese school.

I go to Chinese school every Saturday, and I absolutely hate it.  Chinese school takes place at Newbury park high school every Saturday, and there we learn the horrid language of Chinese.  In Chinese school, we sit in a classroom that we aren't allowed to change - we buy it off TO high school and are not allowed to change anything- and we learn Chinese.  That doesn't sound too bad, but if you actually consider it, it is horrible.  We students have to sit in chairs that are entirely too small, and the chairs are attached to a desk that is also extremely small.  I can't fit my books and work on the desk without one of them drooping off the edge.  It's almost like the classroom was designed for first graders.  So during class, we have to sit in extremely uncomfortable chairs while listening to a Chinese teacher drone on about her life.  

Yeah... I'm just going to end this post here to go to sleep... :p

I HATE Chinese

The title explains all.  I am dedicating this post to express my hatred of the Chinese language.  Tomorrow's post will be of my hatred of Chinese school, unless something else pops up.


So... why do I hate the language?  Well, to start out, it is extremely complicated.  Unlike English, you can't read a word that you never learned.  For English, all you have to do is to sound out the word according to the arrangement of letters.  Chinese words are just a bunch of strokes that make up an artistic blob.  It is impossible to know what the word is without taking a minute to memorize it and keep it in your head.  It is the same with writing words.  If you know what the word sounds like, you have to memorize the artistic blob before you can write it.  In English, all you have to do is think what the sounds spell out.  Another reason I despise the Chinese language is that it takes extremely long to write out a word.  "Hello" would be 你好in Chinese.  it just take so very long to write out something.  The final reason I dislike the Chinese language is that it takes a long time to type out.  To type out a character in Chinese, you first have to type out the pronunciation, then click on the word.  There are a lot of words for each pronunciation, so it also takes a while to find the word you are looking for.  In the technological age where many things are done on the computer, Chinese just doesn't fit in.

Why oh Why

Why do the animals in the world have to be like what they are right now?  Why don't caterpillars and other bugs have five-toed-feet?  Why don't our feet slither instead of walk?  Why do we have thumbs, but other animals do not, either though it is obviously a very important feature that allows us to survive?  What's the point in making our brains bigger and smarter than other animals? If our brain obviously served its purpose in keeping our species alive, then why don't the other animals also have huge brains so that all creatures in the world are equal? Is it a god?  I really don't believe in god, but it seems to be the only explanation.  Unless it is just chance... But if it was all chance and natural selection and whatnot, then every animal should have big brains and long legs and everything good in an animal.  Is it our big brain that caused  us to start creating and building or is it the way our body is built?  either way, the primates should be able to create their own very primitive civilization by now.  So maybe its just by chance that we made all the discoveries to make our civilizations what they are right now.  It was by chance that Edison figured out how to harness electricity and put it in a light, chance that someone figured out how to make a piece of silicone and some metal be able to make complex calculations.  How does a computer chip do that anyways?  It doesn't even make sense to me.  I will eventually have to know how in order to be a good electric engineer and whatnot.  Wow... I got really off topic... Back to the beginning.  What made animals have different noises?  Why can't everything talk like us humans can?  Dogs shouldn't have to bark, they should be able to talk and communicate with us.  That would make them literally man's best friend.


Yep... this was what was going on in my mind.

The convenience of Mini Plots

When I was in sixth grade learning seventh grade math, I found that the most annoying thing on earth was to graph plots on paper.  Then in seventh grade, I discovered the miniplot.

If you don't know what a miniplot is, it is a extremely useful graph in sticky note form.  Basically, it is a sticky note with a xy graph that goes from one to ten.  It is perfect for homework in which you have to graph.  you just stick a miniplot onto your notebook and graph.

When I first discovered the miniplot, I was shocked.  I spent endless hours of my life drawing graphs when all I really needed was a one dollar set of 50 miniplots.  Without any thought, I bought two sets.  When I got home and started graphing with the miniplots for homework, I realized just how useful these plots can be.  I saved almost 15 minutes by not having to graph, and the graphs were also a LOT more legible.  From that point on, I was hooked.

Miniplots were the answer for my need for speed and neatness.

Edited Conclusion

Before this essay, I never gave much thought about why manholes are round.  It just seemed like it wasn’t very important.  But now that I actually think about it, there is a lot of thinking behind the circular shape of the manhole.

San Diego

I’m in San Diego for this Labor Day weekend, and I find it to be very different compared to Newbury Park.

First of all, the scenery is a lot more natural looking.  In Newbury Park, everywhere in a neighborhood looks like an artificial green.  Everywhere where there are not plants planted by man, there is just brown and dark green bushes.  But in San Diego, there is natural grass and beaches.  It actually reminds me a lot of Hawaii.  Because it is close to the ocean, the air is a bit more humid than Newbury Park.  Also, the buildings here are older looking.  They look like one of the old building you would see in an American history book.  One thing I noticed about San Diego is that there are many seafood restaurants.  This is probably due to its nearness to the coast. 

Due to all these differences, I don’t really like San Diego much.

Why Manhole Covers are Round

Manhole covers are everywhere these days, and many people wonder why they are round instead of any other shape.

There are several reasons that a manhole cover is round.  The main reason is that if it is round, the cover can’t fall through the hole regardless of what direction it is put in.  If the manhole cover is a rectangular shape and the cover is turned so that one side is aligned to the diagonal of the hole in the ground, then the cover will fall into the sewer.  Another reason a manhole cover is round is that the tunnel leading down to the sewer is a round tube.  A round tube is the most material efficient and strongest way to protect itself against the compression of the dirt and soil around them.  Because the tube is round, then the cover has to be round too.  Also, manhole covers are round so that they are easier to machine.  Round objects can be made using a lathe, which assures precision manufacturing.  If a manhole cover is not precise, it is easily lifted up by passing cars.  Basically, round manhole covers can be made more perfect than any other shape, which prevents it from coming out of the ground easily.  A smaller, but still important reason that manhole covers are round is that they can be rotated in any direction, and it will still fit perfectly in the hole.  This saves a countless number of minutes for the workers that take care of the sewers.  Circular manhole covers are also easier to move around.  Because of the circular shape, a worker can simply roll the manhole cover to its rightful spot in the world.  An extremely minor reason is that humans are somewhat round, so it is a better fit.  Finally, it is easier to dig a circular hole.  Rectangles and triangles are difficult to dig because of the angles.  

            Manhole covers are circular for many reasons, so for the people that wonder, now they know why.




 P.S. I wrote this as an essay for math