Ability or Attitude?

    In my opinion, a small amount of success comes from ability while a lot of success comes from attitude. The reason is that if a person does not put any effort into what he or she is doing, there is no point in using any sort of ability. It mainly relies on the attitude of the person. Even though a person does not have the ability to do something, as long as their heart is in the right place, they will be successful because they are willing to learn how it does even without the experience and knowledge. Below are some of my personal experiences proving my opinion.
     In my entire life, I had many abilities and yet I do not use them because I didn’t put any effort in it because I was lazy or I felt grumpy that day. One example was mathematics project that a teacher handed out to the entire class for them to individually do. Over that assignment, I thought that this assignment was going to be easy and that even though I procrastinated, I was going to pass. Therefore, I waited two weeks until it was the last three days to finish the project. It turns out that I needed a lot of materials and it took me an entire day to gather them. Soon enough, I had two days left. I had to use them wisely but I got off task. I became behind and I used the last day to rush it. I turned it in incomplete and received a “C” mark on it.
     I had much success due to the positive attitude of that class. One was in an eighth grade class called ODD. It was a class about landscaping and learning to use tools. It was a brilliant and fun class. It was an outdoor classroom class where I am involved with landscaping. I learned to do thing that I never done before like building compost boxes and other stuff. I learned to do them because I remained positive and didn’t feel lazy. I was glad of all that I have learned.

Note*: I had put this on my blog not because it was the last day. It is a Tuesday by the way. I placed this on my blog because I felt that people need to find the right attitude to achieve their goals. Many people continue to complain that they don't have the ability to do their task. If they are willing to put their best efforts, they may not be able to succeed at first but they will succeed next time. ^_^

“Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do it well; whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself completely; in great aims and in small I have always thoroughly been in earnest.” - Charles Dickinson

Who is Qwfwq?

Thesis: In Italo Calvino's short stories, Qwfwq is a creature that struggles to find true love but ends in failure.

In "The Aquatic Uncle", Qwfwq plays the character of a fish-lizard that is able to live in both land and water but he chooses to live on land instead. During his time on land, he falls in love with someone of the same species named Lll. Except, Lll is much more adapt to land rather than water. They were great friends and spent time with each other constantly: "Lll and I spent our days together, chasing each other... We ventured into zones of the inferior where no print marked the dry and crusty" (Calvino 74). Qwfwq wanted to be with her forever and live a happy life. They journeyed to where Lll's home is. Qwfwq would even follow Lll all the way till where Qwfwq has never seen before. He had traveled far beyond from the muddy area where Qwfwq had always lived. If Qwfwq had not loved Lll, he would not have gone beyond his comfort zone. This course of love eventually turned Qwfwq to even do more things out of his boundaries as well.

Later on in "The Aquatic Uncle", Qwfwq brings Lll to meet his uncle, Nba-Nga to get a blessing for his marriage. Unfortunately, Nba-Nga doesn't do so as a result and tries to talk to Lll about living in the water. During this event, this makes Lll have many thoughts affecting her life. Lll begins to ignore Qwfwq, making him afraid that he had begin to lose her. He tries to get her back by impressing her with his abilities: "Had I lost her? Suspecting this, I hastened to woo her back. I took to performing all sorts of feats. Unfortunately when I did something brave, she wasn't there to see me..." (Calvino 80). Here, Qwfwq tries to make Lll come back to him so that nothing would go wrong in the relationship. Like in the previous paragraph, Qwfwq had also gone out of his boundaries because he loved her so deeply. He was willing to risk his own life doing dangerous stunts for her. Sadly, she had not seen any of what Qwfwq had done just for her. She was too deep in thoughts in her mind rather to pay attention to him. In the entire time that she was thinking, Qwfwq should have been comforting her and asking her why she was so depressed. Qwfwq cost his relationship just by the mistake of resorting to the wrong actions at the wrong time. Like "The Aquatic Uncle", the Qwfwq in "The Dinosaurs" also falls in love with another creature but ends in failure due to his mistakes.

In "The Dinosaurs", Qwfwq is the only remaining dinosaur during the Cretaceous period. His entire ancestry was wiped out by a new set of creatures in which they call themselves "the New Ones". In this story, Qwfwq falls in love with a girl named Fern-Flower. Fern-Flower is a New One that constantly dreams nightmares about dinosaurs. Everyday, she tells her nightmares to Qwfwq and he tries to understand her attitude towards dinosaurs. Then one day, When Fern-Flower gets a nightmare that a Dinosaur was being mistreated, Qwfwq tries to comfort her: "This dream furnished me with a new key to the understanding of Fern-Flower's attitude towards me... The revelation so moved me that I threw myself at her feet, tears in my eyes and said 'No, No, Fern-Flower. It's not the way you believe; you're better than any Dinosaur, a hundred times better, and I feel so inferior to you..." (Calvino 104). In this quote, Qwfwq is dramatic and deeply loves Fern-Flower. Qwfwq feels sad that she was sad and tries to comfort her by poring all of his emotions. He even reveals his true identity. But all of that was just a waste. This was all to sudden and he had misinterpreted the situation. He indeed, had only made it worse. It had created a feeling of uneasiness between both of them (Calvino 105). Like "The Aquatic Uncle", he had used the wrong judgment to decide on what to do during the situation. He ruined his own love life.  

Note*: The first two body paragraphs were originally one paragraph. The second paragraph I did not split because the length of it is fine to leave it alone as one single paragraph. This separation idea was suggested by Mr. Sutherland.

Response to "ASTI Size Increase" by Amber Chan

     As many people know, major budget cuts are affecting all of California and many other states of the United States as well. In California, one of the cities in which the budget cuts affect the most is Alameda. As a student of Alameda Science and Technology Institute, I know how this is physically affecting us. I found a post from Amber Chan's blog and would like to respond to it.

"As many of you know, there have been major budget cuts this year, and the Parcel Tax did not get passed, so a lot of the funding for schools has been drastically lowered, and we do not have as many funds to pay for textbooks and teachers.  Many of the schools have been planning to shut down soon and merge with another school, and grades for the school to be changed.  I heard that Encinal High School and Lincoln Middle School might shut down... the grades in Alameda High... would be changed so there are seventh and eight graders too.  Also, they have plans to shut down about half of the elementary schools in Alameda... Because many of the schools might get shut down, and most schools are losing privileges and teachers" -Amber Chan

     In addition, Chipman Middle School was closed this year and is replaced with a charter school that does not follow the district. Encinal High School will be closing next year. All students that wish to attend a public high school would have to attend the last public high school in Alameda; Alameda High. The amount of school days for Alameda have so far been cut five days but there will be more cut later.
     I think that this budget crisis is just unfair for all students and also teachers. Just because California does not use their budget well, they have to cut school budgets and other important funding for public and heath services. Why couldn't they have cut spending on prisons or the military? They are not extremely important at all. Why can't they only have a few large prisons located on a island so that it is hard for them to escape. If there were more cuts there, there wouldn't have to be so many huge effects on the school system. The government should understand that the future is much more important. The future depends on children and if their learning experience is cut, the chance of success goes a little bit lower. This increases the chance that America or at least California will end up in the worse economy and a decline in technology as well.

Stage Fright!!!!!

     Ever since I was a kid, I always acquired the trait stage fright when I was on stage. I disliked the feeling of everyone constantly staring at me. It makes me feel as if I was an important person and that I had to become perfect. I felt that if I made a mistake, everyone would laugh at me and tease me afterward.
     Before and during a speech or a conference, I become extremely nervous and feel the need rush. I want to get the speech or my part of the conversation over with. When this happens, it tends to imply that I will shake my legs or stutter. If I am holding a paper while I talk, many people see that I am shaking the paper intensely. When I am nervous, I also forget my train of thought. That's why when I try to say something, I usually end up saying never mind or that I will go a little bit off topic.
     My distinction from other people that also have the trait of stage fright is that many people get over with stage fright. Ever since I discovered that I have the trait of stage fright, I constantly tried to suppress that feeling. I have tried basic techniques like breathing slowly and calming down but it doesn't work because I don't think about my breathing while I talk. I even took classes involving public speaking in college last summer and I still felt the nervousness within me.  Unfortunately till this day, I could not still resist that nervous feeling.
     In my opinion, I believe that i become nervous because I know that there is something on the line; my grade. Usually when I normally talk to friends or teachers as a casual talk, I feel fine because there is nothing that could influence greatly on my future. On the other hand, grades can determine the future. A deflict of my grade can prevent me from attending high ranking colleges that I would like to attend.
     For those that would like to respond to this post, I would like to know what techniques that you use as a student when speaking. Thanks! ^_^

My 10 words that I chose to study

oHere are my ten words that I chose to find out about:

• derive
• acquisition
• aspect
• distiction
• imply
• implement
• impose
• liberal
• regulation
• sustainable

Response to "Book and Words" from Leon Liang

     Books were never of a pleasure for me and I really hate wasting time reading them. I found a few sentences from my friend's, Leon's Blog about how he dislikes reading. I really think that it also reflects me as well.

"When I hear the word 'book', I automatically feel like I am going to be bored to death from reading. Reading is something that I find complicated and hard. I am one of those that cannot sit down and just read. Most of the time, I would just fall asleep after a couple pages. The problem with books is that I cannot face a page full of just words. From grade school until now, the number of books I have read, excluding the books assigned by teachers, can be counted with two hands. I never bother to go discover which book is good and which one is boring. I only read things that I feel like interesting."     -Leon Liang

      When reading, I always feels this way because I don't like reading any teacher's books. Unless it is one of those scary books or science fiction. I always loved those types, but it takes me a long time to even start reading because once I start reading, I cant really stop because I want to just continue on. I don't like reading any other types of books because they are not of my interest and don't always create the suspense that I expect when reading.
      Last year for our old English teacher, we had to read classics and old time books of her choice for the entire year. It was really boring. When I was reading those books, it took me a long time to read because I was constantly distracted by other events and objects in the house. The books that our past teacher made us read were also not interesting. I really don't like to read books about rape and how life is miserable for others and what they are doing. If the class had awesome action filled books last year, it would have been rather fun and we could learn a lot more about writing.

Excerpt from Doing School by Denise Pope (summer reader assignment)

         The type of atmosphere among the students in Eve’s class  is both good and bad in different ways. In a good way, the competition between Eve’s classes pushes each other to work harder so that they can constantly become better to achieve their goal as number one in the classroom. Another good reason from the competition is the fact that students pay in class more overall in order to achieve the step of understanding what the lesson was about. The atmosphere of the competition is also bad because it can cause some students to cheat their way up the class because they are not able to take the pressure of losing in the completion. This makes them take risks of endangering their grade in order to achieve a higher grade.
         As mentioned earlier, students cheat because they want to become the best student in the class. Students also cheat because they want to impress their parents and please them. Sometimes, parents make promises to buy them something if they receive a good grade. The students believe that they cannot achieve such grade  on their own so they will cheat in order to get such a grade. This can also be called a lack in self confidence in students that are willing to cheat.
         The consequences vary in different types of schools. It ranges from getting an F on the assignment or a test to dropping out of school and having a cheating report on your permanent record. I don’t think cheating is worth it because each point from an assignment or test is very important towards your grade and you are risking all of those points. The students that are caught cheating should just get an F on the assignment rather than an F for a year or dropping out of school. The cheating report should still remain on the permanent record.

Opening Statement

Hello, my name is David Su and this is my partner Vincent Liu. Today, we are here to talk about why Global warming is real and that you should believe in it. So far, many scientists proved that global warming is real with the constant rise of temperature from year to year. We believe that this is caused by human activities from factories, mining, drilling, etc... Every year, there is a 75% increase in carbon dioxide due to the burning of fossil fuels. According to National Geographic, the earth has warmed up 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (.8 degrees Celsius). Most importantly, much of the ice in the north pole and south pole has been disappearing. Slowly mile by mile, the ice caps are disintegrating; glaciers are also impacted. So far, we lost over 890 cubic miles of ice in glaciers. Coral reefs are also dying of bleaching due to their sensitivity to the water temperature. Also, with the rise of temperature, there was a major increase in heat waves, severe storms such as hurricanes and tornadoes, and wildfires. These are all caused by the temperature rise. Droughts and floods also heavily increase every year. In Africa, the Sahara Desert is growing rapidly, expanding within every day due to the heat that kills many plants. Nearly all of Africa’s lakes evaporated into air. People are living without water there. As a result, many of the people there die of thirst. It is so devastating. According to the environmental defense fund, there was a record breaking amount of wildfires in 2006 where it burned nearly 10 million acres and had over 96,000 fires in Western America. One of the biggest reason why global warming is becoming reality is because of all the carbon dioxide. During the mid 1700s, human technology began to improve as time passes due to the industrial revolution. We, humans created new technologies that releases tons of carbon dioxide into the air every day; some of these technologies are factories, trains, cars, etc... More and more heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere are slowly disappearing and temperature is getting warmer. This goes back to what I said in the beginning, carbon dioxide are increasing and even if it is ‘natural occurrence’ you can’t hide the fact that human activities does cause carbon dioxide to go into the air. Therefore, Human activities does cause this strange phenomenon to happen and it impacts our world a lot.