I'm Growing Up

As my Freshman year of high school winds down, I am making a post about my maturity through this school year.  I feel as though I have grown the most out of my life during this year.  During this school year, I have been keeping a journal.  I am going to post a summary of the first entry and compare it to the last entry.  Then, I am going to go in depth on what exactly I went through and what I learned.  I will leave out people's names in this post (each person's name will be identified by the number of asterisks), and these summaries will not be word for word of what I have written down.
September 27, 2011
I have just been assigned my first book report in world history.  (At this time, I felt a little overwhelmed with my work load.  I had no idea what to expect for an honors class in high school.)  My biology teacher was today on a double lab (double period) again.  I hope he feels better, he seems like a really great guy.  ***** just gave a speech during lunch today.  I think she will make a great VP.  She is hardworking and dedicated; so, that is good.  (At this time, I was trying (but failing) to get over a girl; so, I was thinking about other girls to get my mind off of her.  ***** was one of the two girls I began having feelings for.)  I see **** (other girl) outside, but she doesn't even notice me anymore, at all.  I don't think she even sees my as a friend.  My class advisor seems like a friendly guy with some really great ideas.  Overall, I felt this day went well, but I still miss ******. (The girl who I am trying to get over.)
June 4, 2012
Thanks to my prescribed anti-depressants, I feel much better, today.  I met the new class advisor, and she seems very nice.  As the new VP, I can't wait to show her what I can do.  I'm going to give my passion project presentation in G+T next period.  I even included a quote from my biology teacher, Rest In Peace.  I'll make you proud, Mr. ******!  **** just walked by.  I may have a fool's chance with her, but what is life without trying.  As for *****, I'm really hoping that I can just keep my distance from her for the rest of high school.  I've been hearing from a very trusted friend that she hates me.  I've heard some other things, too, which add up to ***** has been lying to me all along.  I'm not going to dwell on the dislike we have for each other; I just don't want to get hurt again, like last time.  I saw a picture of ******'s sister on the wall in the middle school.  This rekindled some hope that ****** still exists.  But, I know she hates me.  She still didn't respond and never will (I had sent her a friendly letter over spring break, and she never responded back).  This is my call to move on.  I'm going to let it go.  Goodbye ******.

As for everything that happened between (so this all makes sense), here it is.  I have had an intense work load that I did not expect to be as hefty.  Stress has gotten to me so badly, I have had to see a psychologist.  My biology teacher remained to be out sick for a large amount of time.  He was in though, and he proved to be one of my favorite teachers.  He passed away on April 23 (I think it is that day).  The class advisor we originally had, quit being our class advisor due to lack of participation.  I was the most active member in class; so, that helped for me to achieve VP.  Lastly, the problems with *****.  I will sum this up as there was a "debate fiasco" and I was left feeling betrayed, let-down, and heart-broken.  Then, she harshly scolded me afterwards for something that I did NOT intend as revenge.  Now, what could I have learned from this year?

1. Trust is delicate.  Do not give trust out to anyone, even the people who think are your friends unless trust has been built up.
2. Never give up.  No matter what pushes you down, you get back up.  No matter what rains down on you, you must still live through it.  However, there is a catch.  You still have to choose your battles and know when to cut your losses.  There is a difference between a wise choice and laziness.
3. Letting things go.  I always hold on to grudges.  But, now I feel as though I can stop.  I am not going to hold onto the debate fiasco.  In fact, I want to forget all about it, even though I feel I was the victim in the situation.
4. Life is short / Seize the moment.  You never know if you are ever going to see another happy moment again.  For every one that comes your way, treasure it.  Don't hold on to it to the extent you miss it, but enough so you can look back and say "I was happy".
5. Friends.  I don't care how strong you think you are.  You need friends.  You need people to be there for you.  Lonliness really hurts.  You cannot solve all of your problems, especially emotional and psychological ones, by yourself.  You can still be strong and accept help from friends.
6. Don't let people take advantage of you.  This relates to the trust lesson.  People that take advantage of you are scientifically considered parasites.  You have to be able to live YOUR life, not live by constantly helping someone else out with their life.
7. Everything is connected.  This was a quote my biology teacher used.  I will make another post exemplifying it.

This is it Freshman year, goodbye.  I have one last thing to say; it is my wisdom of the year.  We as humans are gifted with superpowers.  We have been gifted with an indomitable spirit, and we possess the same conciousness that the legends before us possessed.  There are an infinite number of questions and challenges that await us, and we can take on them all.  But if Superman didn't use his powers, would he still be super?  If you aren't going to take on these questions and challenges with your superpowers, who will?

Final Day of String Theory

O.K. so I have started my powerpoint for my string theory presentation because I am going to have to present everything I have learned soon.  I know string theory can be dry for most people so I am trying to make this presentation as interesting as possible.  Because of this, I am finished with my research on string theory.  However, I have decided to spend my last day researching what string theory is up against, other possible universal theories.  I looked at quantum foam.  It is Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in space-time geometry.  Space-time geometry is brought to you by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity and how gravity works in our universe.  Quantum foam suggests that gravity is actually a quantum field (we do not have any evidence proving that).  Also, quantum foam suggests that there are quantum black holes that appear and dissappear in a very short amount of time at a very small scale.  Wormholes even form and dissolve.  This is why it is called "foam".  Quantum black holes and wormholes are like foam.  There is no evidence supporting space-time has mini black holes or wormholes that behave like foam, either.  This has been a real joy to have time to study what I love.  Thank you Ms. Mystrena!!!!!

Spurlock, can you spare a dime?

Recently in my G+T class, I viewed Morgan Spurlock's 30 Days.  Remember, this is the same guy from Supersize Me.  This is a series where he does unusual things for thirty days.  The episode I saw was him and his fiancee living on only minimum wage for thirty days.  Currently, federal minimum wage is $7.25.  I did see things I expected to see, but there were a lot of things I did not expect to see.  Foremost, it was nearly impossible to live off of only minimum wage.  Minimum wage does not give you health coverage.  If you were to get sick or hurt, visiting the hospital would basically finish you off.  Another thing which surprised me was the injuries.  Both Morgan and his fiancee became sick.  I never thought that living only on minimum wage would mean an increased likelihood of becoming sick or injured.  In poverty there is poor sanitation and back-breaking labor.  This most likely will send you to the hospital which will be obscenely expensive.  I knew living on minimum wage would be hard, but I did not expect it to be near impossible.  However, I think this was only realistic to an extent.  Spurlock never showed long term effects of living on minimum wage, and the very negative sides of poverty.  The apartment he rented was in an area with drug trafficking.  The episode never showed any drug trafficking (which I suppose is a good thing).  I know for a fact that areas in that kind of poverty can be open to drug traffic and violence.  None of that was shown in this episode, but drug traffic and violence would probably be a part of reality.  Overall, I learned from this episode.  I learned that most people on minimum wage are regular people who fell on hard times (not neccessarily because of drugs) and are looking for a way out of poverty.  The US, currently, is not making poverty an easy thing to climb out of.  We do not give a chance to these people to better themselves.  I learned that we have to change the way we work so we raise the standard of living for the people in poverty.

Particles of our Universe

A major key concept of String Theory is that strings produce particles.  I figured, "why not learn about all of the particles?"  This is going to be a list of information, but I may eventually turn it into a chart with some more information.  NOTE: I did not include the Higgs Boson because I still do not know what it is or what it would fall under.  I did include the graviton, though.  For those who don't know about the Higgs Boson and graviton, each is a theoretical particle.  In string theory these particles exist, but we currently have not proven their existence.  Yes, this list is long; I know.  If there are any errors, I apologize for any potential mistakes.

·       Fermions - matter

o   Leptons – ½ spin

§  Lightest Neutrino – 0 (charge)

§  Electron - -1

§  Middle Neutrino - 0

§  Muon - -1

§  Heaviest Neutrino - 0

§  Tau - -1

o   Quarks – ½ spin

§  Up – 2/3

§  Down - -1/3

§  Charm – 2/3

§  Strange - -1/3

§  Top – 2/3

§  Bottom - -1/3

·       Bosons – force carrier

o   Unified Electroweak – 1 spin

§  Photon – 0 (charge)

·       Electromagnetism

§  W^- - -1

·       Weak Interaction

§  W⁺ - 1

·       Weak Interaction

§  Z⁰ – 0

·       Weak Interaction

o   Strong Interaction– 1

§  Gluon - 0

o   Gravity - ?

§  Graviton - ? (not yet proven)

·       Baryons – fermionic hadrons

o   Proton

§  Uud (Quark content)

§  1 (Electric Charge)

§  ½ (Spin)

o   Antiproton

§  Uud – (antiquarks)

§  -1

§  1/2

o   Neutron

§  Udd

§  0

§  1/2

o   Lambda

§  Uds

§  0

§  1/2

o   Omega

§  Sss

§  -1

§  3/2

·       Mesons – combination of quark and antiquark – bosonic hadron

o   Pion

§  Ud

§  1 - (electric charge)

§  0 - (spin)

o   Kaon

§  Su

§  -1

§  0

o   Rho

§  Ud

§  1

§  1

o   B-zero

§  Db

§  0

§  0

o   Eta-c

§  Cc

§  0

§  0

Strings in Black Holes

Stephen Hawking said information is lost in a black hole.  Leonard Susskind mentioned there was a holographic theory which was built off of string theory.  According to string theory, black holes have entropy.  Entropy is hidden information that is not easily or readily accessible such as the velocity of an atom or particle.  This entropy is still information.  In addition, black holes suck in information.  According to Stephen Hawking, not only is information lost in a black hole, a black hole radiates its particles.  This means a black hole would eventually completely evaporate away.  However, one of the most fundamental laws of quantum mechanics states that information is indestructible.  Where does the information go in a black hole if it justs gets sucked away?  Leonard Susskind came up with the holographic principle where the amount of information in a black hole is equal to the area of the event horizon.  That horizon (which is extremely hot due to radiation) is just a film or point of no return covering the black hole.  A holograph by itself is a 2-dimensional rendering of something 3-dimensional.  Alone, it looks like scrambled information.  When you observe it with light (photons), you see a 3-dimensional image.  The event horizon of a black hole is a holograph.  If you observe the information getting sucked in the black hole, you will see that information (whether it be particles or whatever) be radiated back out.  The information will still be the information, but it will be in radiated form.  When you burn a letter with writing, there is still technically the message, but you just cannot read it.  The information is not lost because the act of viewing the information will result in it being fed back out.  The holograph of the black hole allows us to see the information.  However, information can still be sucked into a black hole, but it is still not lost.  Thanks to string theory and Leonard Susskind, black holes make sense again, sort of.  Although this work seems contradictory to Stephen Hawking, he is still a very brilliant and respectable physicist, and I do not mean to talk badly of him in any way.

Poverty at a Snap Shot

I have discovered these three pictures thanks to my G+T teacher.  Each speaks to me with very weighted words.  As we know, a picture is worth a thousand words.  I hope to convey my opinions and feelings the best way possible.  Here they are: (These pictures can be found at the according URL's.)


http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2012/02/slum_life.html
Jan. 16, 2012. (Muhammed Muheisen/Associated Press)

This picture displays a little girl standing in a muddy alley way in Afghanistan.  This girl happens to be a refugee.  I took note in things that were not instantly noticable.  For instance, who noticed she was wearing only one shoe?  The girl looks to be in rags, and she does not even have enough clothing (poor as it is) to cover her both of her feet.  Also, where are her parents?  Her parents could purposefully have been taken out of the picture, but that would have been done to portray this message.  The message is: both parents (or guardians) are out working unable to chaperone their daughter.  There is no school for her to go to.  She is not old enough to work.  So, she aimlessly roams the streets, through the mud.  From this picture, one can gather that children are still harshly affected by poverty.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/07/poverty_within_white_south_afr.html
March 12, 2010. (REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly)

This pictures shows a couple, Donovan Durant and Anna Snyders, grieving over the loss of their baby a few hours after that baby was prematurely born.  I found this picture truly heartbreaking.  The toys Anna holds were all probably meant for their baby.  If you look closely at Donovan's right hand, you will notice a small teddy bear that would have been the perfect toy for an infant.  These two wanted a child, and they wanted to shower him/her with love.  These two must be suffering from the worst pain, the loss of a beloved baby. 

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/02/portraits_from_the_congo.html
February 10, 2009. (REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly)

This picture shows two boys, Jean-Pierre Kalikunshe and Espoir Kangeshe, comforting each other.  They both recently under went surgery for their leg deformities.  They come from the Democratic Republic of Congo and they were assisted from the charity Stand Proud.  Only about 70 children were fortunate enough to be helped from this charity.  Personally, I enjoyed this picture in a way.  They both smile.  To be able to smile means that you (and them as well as everyone else) are able to enjoy life for what it is and have a will to live through it.  They live in a war-ravaged area with handicapped legs, and they still manage to smile.  You could break their legs.  You could break their homes.  You could break their families apart.  But, you could NEVER break their spirit. 

Waste Land

Welcome to the jungle!!! err... I guess I should say the wasteland.  Recently, in my G+T class we saw the movie Wasteland.  This was a documentary about Vik Muniz, famous artist, who traveled to Jardim Gramacho, Brazil to make artwork out of trash.  There he met some of the people who pick out the recyclable materials from the landfill.  Overall, this production and project has had a major impact in the pickers, Vic Muniz, and myself.  I found this movie enlightening and motivational.  I learned of some of the conditions people live through and how they survive through poverty.  In the beginning of the film, I felt immense pity for these people.  As the movie progressed, I got the chance to see the people up close.  The pickers discussed their lives.  I heard their stories, their tragedies.  I saw their lives, their smiles.  My feelings changed as we approached the end of the film.  Instead of pity, I wanted to give these people my respect.  The pickers live in extremely horrible conditions, yet they still live.  One woman named Isis cried about her boyfriend breaking up with her.  Don't get me wrong; she has every right to cry.  However, she cried about a relationship, not her home, not the sanitary conditions, not poor education, not the drug traffic.  She has become so used to the poverty; she has learned to live with it.  Notice when I say live.  These people are not broken; they still laugh and smile.  They live through conditions I could only imagine, and they treat it as their everyday life.  In order to cope with their daily struggles, I would have to be superhuman.  The pickers are simply remarkable.  Was this whole movie meant dedicated to making an impact in the viewers?  Not quite.  Vik still helped the pickers.  He provided numerous oppurtunities for the pickers.  Foremost, he got them famous from this movie and his paintings.  This fame led to recognition of the Association of Collectors of the Metropolitan Landfill of Jardim Gramacho (ACMLJG).  This was created by Tiao Santos, and now this association is global.  Everyone else had oppurtunities, as well.  One woman opened a drug store.  Isis left Jardim Gramacho.  Education became a priority in Jardim Gramacho in addition to sanitation.

Aside from the remarkable people mentioned in the movie, there was an underlying message about trash.  The movie did get me thinking about the trash I produce.  Before this movie, I would always be sure to put my recyclables in the recycling bin.  Now, I think I may tackle anyone who decides to dispose of their trash improperly.  O.K. Maybe not tackle, but violently wag my finger.  This film made me realize that trash and waste MUST be a high priority.

Lastly, art has prevailed to make a difference in society.  Vik Muniz's artistic style highlighted not only the lives of those in poverty but also those in higher classes.  The pictures depict people in poverty.  The pictures are made of trash.  We carelessly produce the trash.  I think the pictures represent how we are keeping them in poverty by producing so much trash.  Not only does Vik target Jardim Gramacho, but he is targeting landfills everywhere.  The story remains the same: higher classes produce trash which the lower classes in poverty must pick up.  That is the beauty of art.  Yes, art can have a message or meaning behind it!  Thank you for reading this post, and I hope this enlightened you to the brave, strong people of Jardim Gramacho.