we are learning about universal gravitation on different planets and talking about planetary orbits in physics honors and it’s quite fun. dave and i both find this topic to be the most entertaining. also andrew, dave and i didn’t really like ch.7 in pre-calc where we learn about sine, cosine and tangent, their inverses (arcsine, arccosine, arctangent) and also their reciprocals (cosecant, secant, cotangent) and according the degree of the angle where they lie on the coordinate plane circle (cosine lies in upper half, sine lies in top right and tangent in right half). it’s easy, but there are lots of properties to remember, so now all three of us have come together to help each other instead of competing. the greatest thing about dave and andrew are that they are laid-back and doesn’t let their stress get out of hand, they always find ways to dissipate it through reading, experimenting with science, going out in nature (hiking is so much fun) or working out. they like me are intensely focused on school work, but they take time to appreciate the beauty of being alive and being out in nature. they are very open-minded and compassionate as well, i think i am becoming very much like them. my parents can be quite judgmental and also criticizing at times. dave, andrew, steve and my special friend like to go with the flow of life. andrew will get more annoyed than dave at times and sometimes i become like andrew as well b/c of the competition. dave is often the mediator between both of us and if we both seem stressed, he’ll cheer us up. dave is great at working with people and sometimes me, him and andrew work together and we learn a lot. my ap english grade and essay writing has gotten better b/c of dave and my science grade has gotten better b/c of andrew. i have started to feel more confident about myself and so has andrew and we have started to shift away from tying our competition to our worth and just enjoying life and working together, teaching each other new things. i got a 104 on my pre-calc quiz on the law of cosines, sines and unit circle;) dave and i seem to have a spiritual connection these days, i’m always looking out for him and him for me. there are times when he seems to be able to sense what i’m thinking and he often helps me with physics honors. sometimes when i’m discussing things with andrew, he will be nearby to also help me and also mediate things if andrew and i start to argue, but this week we’re both having fun competing with each other.

people are so innovative:

https://www.bing.com/search?q=singing+ringing+tree+(panopticons)&form=hpcapt&filters=HpDate%3a%2220160413_0700%22

thanks a lot, anita;) i am having lots of fun learning about laws of planetary motion and calculating the velocity of planets in orbit, it’s a lot of “crunching” in scientific notation numbers into a calculator and solving. the mass of the earth is 5.98X10^24, so cool;) if you drop a clock into a black hole, it will orbit the black hole and as the gravity of the black hole pulls it closer to the event horizon (point of no return), the time slows down b/c the clock is losing energy. i stayed after for physics honors today to go over centripetal force on a rollercoaster and i understand it better now. we are learning about how to graph sine and cosine functions in pre-calc (ch. 7) and it is quite a lot of steps and annoying because if you mess up on the calculations of the asymptotes, you have to redo it. i think i still need a little more practice with it, but i understand most of it, the annoying thing is when you have to reflect, vertical shift and horizontal shift the sine functions because it takes a lot of focus to plot the points so you don’t mess up. i have found it becoming easier for me to calculate formulas and derive them. however when graphing points without a coordinate grid, i find it hard to visualize where the points fall especially for cosine functions, so i get graph paper and do it, then plot it on my hw. dave was teaching andrew about black holes and andrew really enjoys learning about them, so he researched more about them and we were having fun discussing them after ap english. your body elongates as it goes toward the black hole and then it condenses into itself when you reach the black hole (i did a black hole experiment online), making the mass of your body still the same (law of conservation of mass), but the density increases since your body is compacted within the black hole. andrew and i were both laughing while we were discussing black holes, they are so cool. the mass of a star has to be greater than 10x that of the sun to become a black hole. after the physics lesson dave stayed behind to see if i was okay, he helped me with pre-calc and physics honors. when i told him i was staying after, he stayed for ten minutes to see if i was understanding what my teacher was explaining and then he left wishing me good luck. also today during lunch, my lunch buddy steve said that the pre-calc class tended to skip chapters and it was less thorough and that we were ahead by one chapter (on 7.3) b/c in pre-calc honors you learn it in chapter 8) and steve says honors class is easier b/c the teacher doesn’t skip chapters or combine them, but i like my pre-calc teacher. i like how she skips and condenses chapters and she makes learning fun. my friend francine and i were talking about school and how andrew, dave and i were having fun in school. my special friend seems a lot happier b/c he accepts the fact that andrew and dave are just academic friends b/c he heard me and francine talking and he’s happy that i’m doing well in school. he even helped me with pre-calc at lunch.

also i have gotten quite good at lacrosse and throwing shot put (10 kg ball for track). andrew is great at teaching me lacrosse. i love pre-calc a lot this year, it’s so much fun with a teacher who is quite laid-back and takes time to make her students truly appreciate math. yesterday, the whole ap english class worked on the ap terms for the ap test and andrew was teaching me all these cool things on the graphing calculator and the computer. even though we compete at times, there isn’t a guy who shares the same love i have for science, nature, first aid and working out. dave is also very much like andrew and has a great sense of humor and often helps me with physics honors. both of them are quite open-minded and easy to talk to and laid-back. i find that i can be myself around them and that they make me feel more confident about myself. i think being around them both has made me become even better at science. i think i am becoming more and more like them.

i can’t believe this week. i have a physics honors test tomorrow on centripetal force and universal gravitation; pre-calc quiz on chapter seven. i have an ap english quiz on 25 rhetoric terms, pre-calc ch. 7 test and also ap world history test ch. 20 all on thurs. i also have to read 30 pages for ap english in The Color of Water by Thursday. andrew and dave are competing against me, but my lunch buddy steve is helping me.

thanks a lot anita;) i think i did well on the pre-calc quiz and received at least an 88 on my physics honors test, if i have a 1076.7in physics honors, i wonder how that will affect my grade since most of my assignments (only been about 10) have been 100 and tests are worth 50%. my lunch buddy steve was teaching me about pre-calc honors and it is fun learning how to add and subtract sine functions. i find that i have lost most of my interest in ap world history and ap english. i has become the daily routine of analyzing a passage for evidence or rhetorical terms and using it to answer questions or to write an essay. i don’t feel like i’m learning how to effectively structure my own ideas, i’m just taking the evidence from the essay and using it as a launch pad for what i’m going to say. it’s not a bad idea, but i would like a more freestyle way of looking at the documents and applying it to life and constructing ideas outside the scope of the passages instead of just taking the evidence from the passages. this is why i like pre-calc and physics honors because i get hands-on examples on how the stuff applies to life and i’m encouraged to explore new techniques and formats to solve a problem. i think people who are bad at science or math usually have trouble using prior knowledge to make an inference, but i find science and math fun. i’m still a bit shaky on logical word problems and some geometric shapes that involve distance, but i’m enjoying myself. science no matter what form just comes naturally to me, i love learning about the world we live in and also using my prior knowledge to make inferences. i was doing shot put for track today and it seems i have got the motions down. my teammates were great and supportive and helped a lot. i think my farthest throw was 7.5 inches. i think i have become a lot more calmer and a lot more just enjoying the process of life and trying my best in things except maybe not always in ap english and history b/c those classes seem quite easy. i like classes that encourage you to think. i like the way my physics teacher teaches, how he explains the notes in a brief, easy to understand way. i also like my pre-calc teacher since she has a true love of being a teacher. we had a substitute for pre-calc today, but he was quite cool and entertaining. i like izzy (my friend in ap english) b/c she is quite outspoken and laid-back about lots of things. she doesn’t let a class or hw get in the way of life and though she may act irritated at times, she still finds ways to enjoy life and make others and her laugh. she is a lot like me in that we both enjoy science, but she has more confidence than i do.

the students really enjoyed the substitute, he was quite entertaining and he told cool stories of how he used to be a special-ed teacher and also worked in as an limousine chauffeur. the students in my pre-calc class all interact well with each other and their really quiet and diligent and it’s a great working environment. everyone is quite independent and learns things, but we all share our ideas collaboratively. andrew is jealous of dave and me (since we are both in physics honors now and he wants to be there) b/c in his former school at texas and toms river, when he transferred they wouldn’t allow him to skip environmental science, even when he tried to double up on sciences, somehow his schedule got mixed up and he ended having to take advanced math instead. i am taking ap biology senior year while andrew will be in physics honors. he’s annoyed that i am ahead of him in science and dave is helping him. but my lunch buddy and my track mates are great, they are quite laid back and fun to be around and they help me a lot with school. i have been practicing the buddhist value of non-attachment and just letting life flow and it’s been working quite well, i’ve been just appreciating just seeing the sun on my face and feeling the wind on my hair. i realize that it doesn’t matter where i go or who i become friends with, i’ll always have the angels and buddha around me and i feel more at peace. my special friend still looks out for me and so do i for him, but we’re fine not establishing a relationship, we’re just happy to spend time with each other and laugh at the beauty of life. when other people are mad or yelling or criticizing, i take a breath and imagine my breath as a golden halo surrounding me and imagine that i’m drawing in divine light as it forms a positive bubble of warmth and love around me. there are times when my special friend worries that i may be losing myself in math and science or becoming irritated over english and history and he will tell his friends that he will be gone for a while to see if i’m okay. i realize that that sometimes the routes you take aren’t always the ones your parents and authority figures might want you to take, but you should always follow the path that makes you happiest. i am going to become a molecular biologist and study how cells work and figure different vaccines to help against diseases and also experiment with stem cells for brain cancer. i will also go and take some courses in field biology and spend time in nature and practice reiki for my spiritual self. my parents don’t like my spiritual path and they think being a medical scientist is too difficult, but it’s something i find quite interesting. a lot of my teachers are encouraging me to go into neuroscience since i love learning about brainwaves and the functions of the nervous system.