Final Exam

Learning how to take responsibility for one's own learning is a very important thing to do in order to succeed in college. Many people may not know what that means, though. Taking responsibility for your own learning means that you cannot rely solely on your professors to help you learn everything you need to know like you do in high school. In high school, the teachers lay everything out for you and step you through every thing that you need to do throughout the year, making sure you understand it entirely and helping you out greatly along the way. In college, though, the professors will give you a syllabus saying what will happen in the year with all the assignments, and they will be much less attached to you than the high school teachers were. Unlike high school teachers, college professors will not constantly remind you of assignments due or give grace if you forgot to do an assignment. It is much more up to you to get everything done. It is important to do this because not only does it prepare you for future responsibilities, but it prepares you for college life and it helps you rely on yourself rather than the teachers, and it makes you take responsibility for your own mistakes. What may seem to be an impossible task, this can be accomplished by simply starting to take responsibility before you enter college, reminding yourself of due assignments and upcoming tests instead of relying on your teachers. The key to all of this is practice and time; practice taking responsibility and give it time in order to do this efficiently. It may not be easy at first, but after a while, doing things yourself instead of relying on teachers will come very easy and second nature to you.

Summer break

As of last Friday, I officially only have nine more weeks of school until summer break. This is my junior year, so of course I am very excited about only having one more year after this. I also have a few different things that I want to do over the summer. Some ideas I have been thinking about are possibly skydiving, bungee-jumping, and sky-lining I think it's called. All of these are pretty expensive and kind of out there, but I figured These are some things I would like doing, and if I cannot do them this summer, maybe some other time; but some time in my life I would like to do those things. And that is pretty much my plans at this point for my summer.

"The Case for Torture" Argument

This argument, "The Case for Torture," is simply arguing that torture is a necessary thing in times of crisis, such as when a terrorist is going to bomb a populated area, or when a preemptive strike is going to happen. He says the torture of one person to stop the slaughter of many other people is a very necessary thing that we must do. He argues his point by using the Toulman Logic; he introduces the first counter-argument, explains it, then refutes it. He then goes through other arguments in the same way, sort of like an argument in real life. Overall, he says torture is worth it because it saves the lives of many other innocent people. I do not think that he uses any fallacies; he simply uses theoretically real-life scenarios in order to bring across his point. For example, when one person says it is unconstitutional, he says it is unconstitutional of the terrorist to bomb many innocent people in a populated area. A potential counter-argument that was not brought up by the author is that it is possible that a man thought to be a terrorist is tortured, then later discovered not to be, but nothing is done to the man to compensate him after his right as a citizen has been violated.

The 3DS

As many people may know already, Nintendo's new hand-held system, the 3DS, released in stores on Sunday. My brother bought one the day it came out, and so of course I tried it out, and sure enough, the 3D actually works. It is actually pretty stunning how cool it looks. Everything pops out at you in 3D, and there is also a little depth slider so you can adjust how strong the 3D is. It is an awesome system, and I encourage those of you who have not looked at it yet to go find someone who has one and see for yourself how awesome it really is.

Andrew reflecting on Nintendo's greatness

I interviewed by brother, Andrew, about Nintendo, a company that he loves very much. These are the questions that I asked and his responses.

1. Q:What is your current favorite Nintendo video game? Why?
A:Super Mario Galaxy 2. Because the game is expansive, addicting, great sequel w/new features. cool physics. all-around cool game

2. Q:What was your most expected Nintendo game and/or system of all time? Did it meet your expectations? Explain
A:Nintendo 3Ds. yes, wasn’t sure about whether it would be good 3d, but it turned out to be brilliant; had a lot more to it than first expected

3. Q:What is your all time favorite Nintendo video game? Why?
A:Super Mario brothers 3. great for its time, great music; also expansive and addicting

4. Q:Why is Nintendo your favorite game company?
A:Because of the franchises, ex. Kirby, DK, pokemon, Mario; games are very enjoyable; games that are more to my liking than the games Sony and Microsoft produce

5. Q:What game/system/etc. do you think Nintendo should make next?
A:The new Wii, Wii 2, with better graphics and HD gameplay, more Nintendo games in general

Themes and peotic devices

The main theme for the poem "Workday" was that although we do not think about the pain and troubles in other places as we do our daily routine, they are still happening and are very real, even if we don't realize it. One poetic device that the author uses is voice. He displays his emotions through his words; she seems to be expressing sadness about the troubles in the world. She also uses language and style to display her sadness and almost disappointment at what is going on in the world and also around her. Lastly she uses allegory by telling of her sisters in prison almost as a picture of pain and anguish in every person's life.
The main theme for "Did I Miss Anything?" is that this question is not a serious question, but rather rhetorical, and therefore cannot be answered seriously, but rather sarcastically. The author uses hyperbole many times by over exaggerating what happened the previous day, whether it was angels coming down or two gigantic exams that he would fail that counted for 90% of his grade. He also partly uses dramatic irony in that the character may think that what the teacher is saying is true, whereas we know that the answers are all very sarcastic. Lastly he uses voice, again displaying the extreme sarcasm in his answers about what did or didn't happen.

Science Fair

On Tuesday our whole school had a science fair, including science experiments from kindergarten all the way up through high school. Since I'm a junior, my science experiment was done over the course of most of the year, whereas the little kids basically did a mini-science fair, which was pretty cool. My science project was figuring out which fabric out of the ones I picked burned the fastest, and it was really fun. I ended up winning first place for it, but overall I'm really glad that it's finally over.