LAST BLOGGGGGGGGG!

I can't believe it. I must make this blog epic! I hope my pictures make sense, or else this whole blog will be a failure. Here we go!

I have three different concepts to talk about. Friday was dance showcase (which I hope everyone went to), and gravity was not on my side. All my costumes were strapless (wraps and dresses), so if I were to step on the bottom of them (which I did a lot) and fall, that would have been very very embarrassing. The dances were pretty fast paced, also allowing gravity to do its thang. But whatever. I also chanted, which involved striking a dead gourd with my hand and the ground. Along with force, sound waves were emitted from said gourd, which were amplified by its hollow structure. OH and I pulled a girl's hair. Tension was apparently involved so I could drag her across the stage, and increased and decreased as I tugged and released.

When I got home, I remembered to take pictures of my "native" hair, both before and after brushing it (which oddly enough, the 'after' hair eerily resembled my hair pre-straightening perm), which made me have to choose between my nice looking but cruddy camera and my silver, old, but very reliable other camera. As you can see, I used the silver one. As we all know, cameras employ lenses to take an object and make an image within its memory bank for reference later. The aperture opens and closes to let in light, which changes the brightness as intensity changes. To focus, a lens moves until the image is within the camera. Any different, and the image would be blurred.

And finally, as I realized I'm probably too jiggly for prom, I played with a resistance band to attempt to get my arms in shape. Which I know is A) impossible to do in 1 week and B)impossible unless I do some massive cardio. P90X much? Anyway, it's kinda like a spring. As the band stretches, a force is created directed towards the equilibrium point. The force from my arms override it, but the larger the "tension," the larger the restoring force until I release the band or relax it. My lack of strength means a small tension is hard for me to overcome with my own force, so the band is barely stretched. XD

Well, that's all, folks. Thirty-something weeks of head-bashing, tantrum inducing, greatest times of our high school lives. You all knew it was coming, you just couldn't accept it. I hope these quotes will invoke--as Mr. Takayesu would say--WONDERFUL memories about Phys B. I know some quotes aren't the same as memory serves, but it has the same effect.

"You keep accelerating! So that's why it hurts when you fall off a building." ~doc!

"Just google it." ~Bobby

"Doc, why'd you stop the lecture?" "I got a pain in my ass" "GREG, WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?!" ~MGS and doc!

*Greg returns to his seat after making sure there's no quiz* "THAT'S why I hate this period" ~doc!

"Why is graphite a good piston?" "It's self-lubricating!" ~doc! and Calvin

"Where do you want to see a wide-angle?" "A window?" ~doc! and Dylan

(Talking about the pool and snorkel experiment) "You can hear them gasping for air. *makes the noise* *laughs*" ~doc!

"See the test charge? *lets it go* Oop. *lets it go again* Oop." ~doc!

"We should move Hawaii to the equator." ~MGS

"How did you get to the cookies? I hid them!" ~doc!

"Aren't you glad Greg's not graduating this year so you can have him for Physics C, doc?" ~MGS

"Same hose!" ~Our class

"Why are you guys (Dani, Steph, MGS) working with those guys (Bobby and Calvin)!?!?!" ~doc!

"What are you doing?" "I'm stretching." "Oh, I thought you were waving." *Calvin waves* "Hi. *doc! waves back*" ~doc! and Calvin

"Are Ashley and Ian an item?" "No, Ashley has a boyfriend..." "They're always beating each other up..." ~doc! and Danielle

And of course, the Physics videos, which can be seen on Kaela's and Steph's profiles.

Sorry we couldn't make you that giant Jeopardy board, doc. But you know we love you so very much! I'm so glad all of us shared our experiences with you. Even though I'll have you next year, it's still very bittersweet to part so quickly. I hope you liked my last blog, doc. And good luck to everyone on the exam! And to finish off with my weekly blogs, I must always say:

Yay for so many memories! Yay for all our work paying off! Boo for the last blog ever. Thanks for everything, guys.

I'll never become a vegetarian...

Meat in general is way too good. I'm probably one of the reasons for global warming, since cows add lots of greenhouse gases in the air, and I'm promoting the constant breeding of these walking steaks. But whatever! I'm still going to eat them!

So yesterday, my parents and I went to Chinatown to order a lei for prom. After that, we wandered through the place gathering choke amounts of food for the week. I'm not the only one of my family spending more on food than anything else. :P Anyway, we bought 3 Kona crabs because my parents wanted me to experience the happiness that arises from eating such a huge crustacean. They were HUGE; the biggest one was as big as my head. That was mine. :D

Those are two halves to two different crabs. You can see the size difference. A lot of force had to be used to split these mammoths in half, involving a large knife that has more surface area than normal. Which means using a machete (which my father wielded with much experience). Torque was also applied to separate the meaty legs from the body. The crab cracker also used torque to destroy those legs to give me the delicious bounty that was trapped within them. And of course, the more I ate, entropy became larger and larger until...


As you can see, I decimated my crab. Or half of it, at least. The other half is calling to me from within the fridge, waiting to be my lunch. Let's call this the last supper, since this week is the beginning of HELL. Monday: AP Phys multiple choice and Showcase rehearsal. Tuesday:AP Spanish and another rehearsal. Wednesday: yet another rehearsal. Thursday: AP Physics free response and you guessed it: another long rehearsal. Friday is Showcase! Too bad this schedule means I won't get home until 8 at the earliest. Which also means more hours I'll have to spend awake to finish homework. All-nighters much? To quote Mr. Bickel, it's going to be "FUN FUN FUN!" Good luck guys. I'm sure we all need it.

Yay for delicious, delicious crab! BOO for AP/Showcase aka hell week!

(Don't you love the partially naked plumeria? This is without, by the way. You'll understand as you read this through.)

Gasoline fumes and weird glass cleaner smells are currently residing in my household. Hooray! T_T My dad was mowing the lawn, then cleaning the patio table, and since there are windows galore, my house gets the brunt of everything. But that's not what this blog is about, unfortunately.

So I went outside this morning and the sun started hitting my eyes. I just woke up, and even small quantities of light made my eyes water, so you can imagine the amount of squinting and walking around with my eyes closed. (I know it became cloudy all of a sudden; stupid nature hating on me...) Instead of running blindly through my backyard and probably killing myself on the stereotypical Filipino flowers (the ones with the super spiky stems), I went back inside, took a random pair of sunglasses, and went outside. It wasn't a super significant difference, but it helped.
How so? Well, the sun emits waves in all sorts of planes (which is possible since we're not in Flatland). The sunglasses have small slits that only let waves of a certain plane in, and keep all others out. In this way, just a small portion of the overall light gets transmitted to the eyes, blocking unnecessary brightness. Unfortunately, they weren't polarized to my liking, so instead of having everything super dark, everything just seemed just a little darker (it doesn't show it on here, though...). That's what you get for cheap athletic sunglasses...Oh, well.

One more week til hell, guys. Keep studying! I'm such a hypocrite, but I'm hoping my mind will finally realize the importance of not failing...Hopefully...

Yay for last week of small kine freedom! Boo for APs coming up...NEXT WEEK?!??

All I have to show from this weekend is an increase of fat

So I've been lazy and not using a camera this week, so this pic is created from my handy-dandy webcam. This weekend has been completely exhausting, in a good way. Fair, Pearl Harbor, pool party; all good. Pearl Harbor was interesting and claustrophobic, especially in the submarine. Those people that get assigned to submarines must have a great mental stability, because even the thought of sleeping on the bunks except for the top sent me into a small rush of fear. At the fair, I spent less of my scrip playing games like I used to do, and more to sample the food there, especially the ones at Le Gourmet. Nice to know that my parents' money is going to me stuffing my face for the winter...-_- Anyway...

What did any of that rant have to do with physics? First off, at Pearl Harbor, there was a giant film of oil by the Arizona Memorial, from a mix of the ferry oil and the oil stuck within the warship that could never be fully removed. This created a thin film of interference, which in turn made for a colorful refraction-like surface on the low-tide water. During my malasada shift, speed could never stay constant due to the slow cooking-time and the lack-of-ready-dough. Even when there was enough dough and four fryers, demand greatly exceeded the current supply, causing a negative acceleration of us whipping out malasadas. Thin-film intereference was present in the bubbles used at the party, as was pressure in the water guns and the sound waves emanating from the speakers which were on for the entire time.

Sorry if my blogs have been lacking lately. I have no real excuse other than that of pure exhaustion from the course of the last few weeks. Just a couple more before a little of my stresses can be relieved, but until then, life won't be that happy. Let's see how we're doing next week...

Yay for three-day weekends! Boo for not enough recovery time! Yay for friends hanging out with me for more time than what we spend at school!

"...No one would care at all. " That's how I feel about my blogs...

AP exams are getting closer, guys, and there's nothing we can do to stop it...*sigh* It's only been a couple weeks into the quarter, but it feels like it's been months. Good thing it hasn't, because a lot of my grades are circling the drain right now. Ugh. Anyway...

So to relieve some stress, I listen to music. Mainly from Youtube, but sometimes I bust out my small collection of CDs and listen to songs I used to love so much. I still like them, but it's interesting to see how my taste in music changed over the years. It's also interesting that one year I'm listening to Beyonce, and the next I'm OBSESSED with My Chemical Romance and AFI. Too bad I don't have any CDs of my newer obsessions, or my wall would be COVERED in Korean and Japanese stuff. Hehe, I guess that'll wait for college life.

Here's the front of one of my AFI CDs (Crash Love). I really love their song, "Beautiful Thieves" from this album, although lots of people hate how the band changed for this CD. It's slightly reflective due to the smooth nature of both the paint job and the disc itself.Here's the more Physics-relevant back. We studied slits last section, and how the fringe pattern still remains even with many slits. The CD is showing my reflection rather than the other side because the CD on the other side is covered with the design. It also makes it easier to notice when scratches form, which would disrupt the slits and (when left too long to become deeper) make the data inscribed unreadable. The slits also cause prism effect on parts of the CD because the light would be refracted differently depending on where the light hit. That's basically how players can read the info on the CD.

This week is Family Fair! Four real days, guys. Unless you count Pearl Harbor as one, too. T_T One last test for Phys, too, so get studying!

Yay for the malasadas soon to be in my mouth! Boo for heavily weighted scores!

I put sunscreen, but I tan a lot anyway...useless...

Why is it that one friend always bleaches, one always burns, and one doesn't tan at all? I guess we all respond to sun differently even though we all live on this Vitamin D-enriched rock in the middle of nowhere.

Enjoy this picture of me and Steph displaying our Shaka riding skills and lung capacity~

So to celebrate a friend's birthday, going to the beach was in order. Unfortunately, nobody (but me) likes the feeling of sand between their foot and their slipper, so the water park served as a chlorine-filled alternative. Within that short 5 hours, we managed to ride all the rides. A few rides multiple times. I still feel the effects of swinging back and forth on the Tornado and the Ragin' River (which is a great substitute for the now-dead Cliffhanger). I guess I rode a bit too much...

Anyway, what does this have to do with physics? SO MUCH. Going down slides brings in gravity, so if there wasn't any twists and turns to decelerate us, many many rides would cause us to go down screamingly fast and fall out onto the unforgiving cement. At the same time, the water on the slides provides low friction so that we can actually start moving with it. Unfortunately, there was no way to have still water at any point so I couldn't test out any refraction or double slit properties. Wavelengths were obviously there, being the water and all that.

Good Friday was great. Saturday (as many Juniors and Physics students observed) was not. Hopefully it'll get better...

Yay for the waterpark! Boo for broken servers and English in general!

El palacio del hielo

...also known as Ice Palace. Sorry, I don't have any pictures for it but just bear with me. Just picture that ice cube all over the ground, then you got the gist of it.

So today, me and some friends went there for funzies. The first thing I noticed was the ice. It wasn't just ice, there was also water. The temperature of that mix was 0 degrees, but the continuous entrance and movement of people's bodies did not help to get the water back to its frozen state. No change in temperature means no change in energy. Not including the ice and water that gets displaced by skates.

The second thing I noticed was the skates. The shoes themselves are built so the only way you could get completely off balance is if you eat it on the ice. Or your leg breaks above the shoe (which I don't think you'd get to that point, but whatever). So despite the potential energy, there is almost no allowance for torque in the shoe. The metal skate gives little friction so gliding on ice would be easy, if sliding wasn't already a given on watery ice. The only thing is the points of support are below the center of gravity, and since I can't skate at all, I had a difficult time keeping the center in a position that wouldn't cause me to topple over.

I know I should be taking risks, but I've had bad memories of Ice Palace that won't allow me to shake off my controlled, careful, and slow skating. That's okay; at least it shows me that although I'm not good at any sport, I can at least be a lot more competent in sports that are related to living in a non-snowy place...I guess...

Yay for living it up during spring break!