12th Grade Roller Coaster Expositions

Today during Computer Class, we went to watch the 12th grade exposition about their Physics Project. They had to do a roller coaster that transported a marble from one side of the board to the other side. I found all the projects really cool but the one I most liked was the one with the one from Erika Zinser and the one with the Candy Mountain theme. I really liked Erika's because it was really cool how the marble, going through a plain route, went up the spiral TWO times! In my opinion that looked pretty amazing. The other roller coaster that I liked, the Candy Mountain one, was also pretty cool because it had REAL candy and, in my opinion, they were the team that worked the hardest because their track were the marble had to go through was the most delicate one, being made out of two plastic, flexible sticks. Most teams used real tubes were the marble would have no option of falling down, which I think that is cheating. The Candy Mountain's track wasn't completely closed so I think that was way more laborious.

Pancho's Presentation

Last Friday in English class an old graduated man from the American School of Puerto Vallarta, Francisco Sean, visited our class. At first he started with his presentation he made about life phylosophy and how we should never give up with anything we need and want. After that he gave a speech about how and why the Iraqi War started. I actually don´t agree much with him because he said that the Iraqi war was something that would made both Iraq and the Untied States a better place. We, as citizens of the wolrd, know that that is not true. Wars don´t bring any good to the world, they jsut bring violence and innocent deaths. Something that shocked me the most in his presentaton was that he had to shoot CHILDREN. Once, he told us, a boy grabbed a stick and played with it as if it were a shotgun. the boy aimed at a United States soldier and, Francisco, shot the boy without even realizing that it wasn´t a real weapon but just a wood stick. That was kind of a sad story which he, Francisco, also thought was something he would never forget about. I found cound of lame that the war was to make Iraq a better place, which os obviously not the real reason why the war started. The reason why Fransisco came to talk to our class was to show us how to give a speech. In my opinion I didn´t like how he gave the speech because he was always putting his hands in his pockets and he was kind of fidgeting a lot. Maybe we could have a more proffesional person come to our class and show us how a good speech should be given so we, as students, learn how to speak in public.

Me, Myself, and I

My name is Taku and I was born in Mexico City. I've been living in Puerto Vallarta since I was nine years old and have switched houses over 4 times. Puerto Vallarta is located in Jalisco, if you don't know. It is on the west side of Mexico besides the Pacific Ocean. You may think that my name isn't mexican and you are guessing right. Both of my parents are from Japan and it is quite exotic having descendants from there. Since I was little, I have been thought Japanese cultures and traditions, which is very nice and in some simple words cool. Two years ago I used to play tennis but i stopped for a while because of school stuff that have been taking a lot of my time. This year im starting with athletics with a P.E. teacher here that studied in Italy. He is very strict and I think that in physical education being strict is the number one best quality someone could have.

Normally my summers are boring. I just stay here in Vallarta and hang out with friends, which I find more entertaining that going out with my family else where. Here in Vallarta there isn't much pollution but the beaches aren't the most nice beaches in the world. Puerto Vallarta's beaches are very dirty and full of trash. Green Peace has even come here to try and clean beaches. I think that beach cleaning is also very important because in winter whales come from the Pacific Ocean and we are supposed to take good care of them. There are laws that say that we are not supposed to get any nearer than about 100 meters but people don't mind and just enjoy themselves. When I go having fun to the beaches with my friends I mostly go to Nayarit, which is like half an hours from here. The beaches there are WAY more beautiful and less dirty. My favorite one is called Bucerias, which is also the name of the town. If you ever come here to Vallarta I bet most tours would be going over to Nayarit's beaches and not Vallartas.

In my school there are various different activities going on. For example, last week ther was this anual thing called the "Talent Show' whch involves everyone who wants to participate. The student council is the main organizer and every year they make parody of nything they want. Any student who wishes to participate is welcome to and you may sing, dance, act, or anything you want. Some teachers also enjoy the Talent Show by making funny dances or random things. This year the science teacher, the two P.E. teachers, and a english teacher, danced the song "Single Ladies" by Beyoncé. I was payed to make a skit of the video in Youtube of "William Hung - She Bangs". I found it pretty funny but when I got on stage I kind of forgot the lyrics. It didn't last for much but is was fun. I enjoyed more last years Talent Show than this years because the student council this year isn't really well organized. Another activity that is going on in the American School of Puerto Vallarta is the Vallarta Verde. That involves separating the trash by organic, unorganic, and aluminum cans. This event hasn't been going on very well because people are really lazy and don't empty their Cokes before throwing the can away. I think I may be included in that category of lazy people. xD

Well, this will be my final paragraph. it will be kind of lame because I don't have much time left. This paragraph will be about all my favorite stuff. My favorite food is Italian food. Since little I've loved pasta and spaghetti. My favorite music type is soft rock and alternative. Some of my favorite bands are Good Charlotte, My Chemical Romance, and Green Day. I really don't like much heavy metal or Pop but I can handle some reggaeton. I actually don't have any favorite subject in school but my best subject is math. I am one year advanced and I think that is my only class that I like. :3

Listening

Today in class we listened to everybody's Music Projects for about two minutes each. What i think that made the projects better were sounds that we, recording, put in our project. I think that Rodrigo´s project was really creative because it is mostly, i think all, beat boxing. In my case my project was both sounds that i made and sounds that i got from the internet. I think that, to make my project better, i would need to organize more my sounds. Paola told me that my project was really cool but that the sounds repeated a lot. The biggest problem that i faced was that my headphones did{t work well as a microphone so, when I tride to record with them, the product would have a really low volume limti and when i raised it through Audacity it would sounds really bad. Maybe I could just change the earphones because something I also noticed in my song was that you could hear the air being recorded, so to erase that error I could change the earphone angle when being recorded. I really liked this project and would really like to do one again but with real songs and with more organization. :)

My Audacity Project

Mr. Picketts asked us to make a song with our own imagination using sounds that he gave us via internet or sounds WE could invent. I really liked this project because I beat boxed and because we got to use plenty of class time with Mr. Picketts’ help. I started with the sounds that I got from www.partnersinrhyme.com and like I didn’t like them much, I started doing my own sounds. They are kind of just mashed up together but then I put them in sort of an order. What I found most frustrating is that when you were trying to record something, people would start screaming and making sounds with the result of YOUR recording being ruined. I think we should do a remix of songs that already exist being mixed together instead of making our own sounds. I think the resulting song would be way more cool. I think people could make a better effort, counting me. I would really like to do this project being able to use songs that already exist.

Mash ups

I enjoyed hearing others Audacity Projects because I saw that you could not only mix sounds, but also music. I liked how you can mix singers voices with cool songs rhythms and vocals. I think that I will make another Audacity project but with more effort and not with a Halloween Theme but more of a Techno Remix song. Today I heard Fernanda Corzo's, Jorge's, Paola's, and Pedro's mash ups. I liked Fernanda's the most because it has both the original and the remix version of the song "Hot n Cold" by Katy Perry with a background of a techno beat. I also liked Jorge's a lot because it has a mix of video games, showing you different sounds like a gun and people fighting. I liked it because it remembered me when I was smaller and I used to play those games.

I enjoyed working in audacity because you can mash different sounds that you like, making the perfect song for you. My mash up had a Halloween Theme because it was the day before Halloween and the computer is full of different scary sounds so I used some of them, with a background of the movie Halloween Theme Song. I really liked mine because it Is kind of scary, with the Theme Song. I would really like to use Audacity once more but instead of Halloween music more of a rap - alternative kind of mash up.

Typing Reflection

Since the beginning of the year my typing score have grown a lot. At the beginning I was scoring around 30 - 35 words per minute and accuracy. Now i am scoring around 40 to 45. My highest score has been 40 words per minute and accuracy with a 93% accuracy and a 44 words per minute. My goal that i would like to reach is 50 words per minute and accuracy. I really need to improve the accuracy because it always stays near the 90s. I think I could reach this score with more practice, maybe every once in a while. Next week I don't know what I will get in the blind test. I think my score will lower because of the nerves and not knowing where my fingers are going. When i watch the keyboard I write way better, but with my own words and not copying other documents. I am nervous but I think I will do better than other people. ;)

Future Artifact

My artifact from the future will be a big hit depending on ohw people today keep growing, not taller but wider. This "machine" will be able to burn fat anywhere, anytime. Today, most Americans are REAAALLY fat. United States is the country with most fat people, and Mexico is the second. This traveling machine will help people with their self esteem, but will need to be used with parental supervision because people might want to commmit suicide by taking ALL of their fat in their body away. I really liked working with photoshop this last week because I learned a lot of things i didn't know before. The difficult part of this project was that the teacher wasn't here with us so we couldn't communicate. If it wasn't because of that I think many of us could've done our project way better, but apart that I really liked working with Photoshop.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBuhXnGkB3dfzGLfAZxxpiXuq-Sxv8OqgVQwQYVGmvJDYyhrrCWZw7vorDUjp1swRtIomFF7ll_VDVRmg487E699PcA11AcuUlet8RGFVejqj6XsxGq3dXC6hbYVYV_5DM5SsLzyX5Baaw/s1600-h/Future+Artifact.jpg

This artifact from the future is kind of weird. At first sight you can't identify what it means, but after talking with the creator, Rodrigo, he explains you what it means. After being explained, you get the project. In this artifact from the future, Rodrigo didn't use much of Photoshop's tools. All I could see was cutting and pasting. I think Rodrigo could have put more effort in this project. The tutorials he completed in Word weren't involved in his Photoshop project. If he had used more tutorials in his project it would have looked neater. In the next project we have using photoshop I would recommend Rodrigo to use more Photoshop "magic" and be more creative.

In my opinion I wouldn´t want a dog machine in my house. Maybe I could purchase a dog from the machine, but not the whole machine. I really think it will be available in the future because right now genes are already being mixed and tested. There already exist mixed animals like goats and sheep, but mixing several dog races I don´t know. I bet that in the future that machine will be available and will win plenty of money. I liked the idea of choosing different dogs to make your dream dog. I would mix a Siberian Husky with a Golden Retriever. Normally I would prefer the Siberian Husky but a mix would be just perfect. I really can´t think of a machine creating life but one that existed would be a tremendous hit! People would just love to have a machine creating their dream puppies, but I bet that a machine creating life would be really expensive and would have legal limits and stuff like that. I think the creator of this machine will be a total genius.

Smoking with Photoshop

This tutorial will help me on my photoshop project in one way. It will make the project look as if something was burning and the smoke was coming out. My project isn't something with fire, but a fat burner. The fat will evaporate in a way that it will make it look like if it was evaporating. I really liked this project, it was really cool playing with photoshop. :)

Making Bubbles with your own Custom Brush

I really liked this tutorial.It will help me with my project because it will make the fat look hot because it will be bubbling. The bubbles look perfect because in my project the fat us supposed to start burning and then evaporate. The bubbling will make it look like if the fat was starting to boil. I really liked this because you could use it like if it was underwater or in the pool. It could help plenty of others projects. :)

Artifact from the Future

what your htinking


This windshield is an awsome futuristic device i would definately buy. This picture shows how in one car you can see many other things like who the other persno in the car is, where is the closest Starbucks, etc. I bet you could call someone from there! This windshield is really advanced, but right now i think it will almost be invented because we are very technologically advaced. It has a camera, which many cars have now. Most new cars now have GPS, which can let you know where you are and how to get to somewhere you want to go. With a GPS you would never be lost. It has many distracionts on the windshield, but i bet it wouldn´t matter becaues it would also have automatic driving.

I really liked this picture because, in one screen, it gives you alot of information. I think that in the future, we will not drive cars, but the cars will drive us. As you can see in the picture, the technology tells you most things you should know while driving, and even more. As you can also see in the picture, the guy is eating a chocolate bar without worries. This tells you he isn´t worried about something going wrong because all those applications on his windshield are normal for him. THAT is cool, not having to worry and having dozens of applications on your car that drive for you.

I think my future will be awsome. With thousands of new things that will help me on my daily basis, the technology will be way more advanced that it is now. I am still not sure of what my project will be about, but I already have some ideas. I may do something about the global warming or about the technology advancements. I am not yet sure, but I would go with the nature dissappearing.

Social Change

I think my social life will change drastically over my life time. This social media problem is one of the biggest problems in Earth, at least that's my opinion. Throughout the last 100 years, THOUSANDS of things have changed.First of all, the social media. Internet has millions of pagaes on it. You could travel through millions of pages a day, having another billion more to go. Every day, hundreds of pages are created throughout the world. Every second, the internet is growing.

All over the world, the population is growing. The population in China is 1.3 billion people, in India it is 1.1 billion, and in the USA 300 million. Every now and then new jobs are being invented, so more people are getting jobs. To get accepted in these jobs, you got to study things that in the past were not obligatory. Now, they are not obligatory either, but you need them to survive. By survive I mean getting a decent job, earn money, and be able to afford a place to live. Social media is a GIGANTIC problem today. People are being kidnapped, assaulted, raped, and even murdered.

Web pages today are still growing. If you type a word in google, over 250 BILLION web pages will appear in front of you in less than 0.17 seconds. The number one type of pages visited today are porn pages. In less than 9 months, 100 million people have been added to the Facebook community. If facebook was a country, if would be the number FOUR largest country in the world. In my opinion, social media isn´t bad, it´s just a faster way of communicating. The problem with social media is the way we use it. Thousands of stalkers wonder around pages, trying to get information to get to you. A way to avoid being assaulted or being stalked is to not put your real information on a public page. The private data could be private for only your friends and networks.

I think social media shouldn´t be banned from nowhere, but just being cautious. There should be more parental supervision pages. Parents should be able to look at most stuff their kids do. I know having your parents look at everything you do is a pain because I´m a teenager. I think not putting your own private data or any othre private data is the best thing someone could do to prevent being stalked.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

My Blurry Family Tree

The best Christmas I've ever had was when i was six years old. My whole family from Japan came to visit us. I used to live in a bigger house, so my whole family fit in my house. Since i woke up, around 9 in the morning, my whole family was already there. They all greeted me with a lot of presents. The present I most liked was a brand new bicycle, and that was from my grandfather. I will never ever forget this Christmas because it's been the only time I've been with my WHOLE family at the same time. I really miss being with all of them. Now it is harder to travel to Japan, and there are just some things that will never let me be with my grandfather and grandmother again. But still, this has been the best Christmas in my life, or at least that I've had.

My Family Tree

What I found most challenging in this assignment was finding the pictures of my family. The paternal side of my family lives in Japan so I couldn't get the pictures taken, neither I could get the pictures emailed because i don't have their email addresses. I had to look at many different photo albums to find the paternal side of my family and also some of my maternal side.

My Family Tree

I chose this tree because it is both big and outstanding. It is also floating, which makes it look more cool and nice. ;D

Name Tag

My Blog

Well, I don't know much about this page. I had to do it for computer class. I don't even like this page much because it's too simple and boring. I really don't want to learn much about Blog because i know the basic, it's a place where you can update stuff and that's it. If I were to do that, I would use Facebook. Our assignment since yesterday was to add everyone in our class to our blog. The big problem was that some people didn't have their blog done yet. The problem was solved today because the two missing persons completed their blog. Now I have all 23 personas added to my blog and have no further problems. ;D