Why I Don't Blog about Science (as much)

As you may have noticed, I just don't blog about science that much anymore.  (Admittedly, I don't blog much anymore, but when I do, I prefer to talk about school).  And so, to record my reasoning for when I'm older and looking back on this blog, I'm going to spit out my reasoning for not blogging about science: I just don't really know enough to come up with a good opinion on anything.  As a high school freshman, I'm not exactly the brightest of the bright- but not that green either, which is how I came to the conclusion that there is a LOT to learn out there.  How could I be able to talk about, say, a new atom smasher if I'm not even sure of what it's used for?  I might know that say, it's used to achieve high energies to find really, really, really, really, really, really (you get the idea), really, small particles.  But I barely know the difference between a lepton and a meson or gluon or photon or any of that.  And until I do know, until I can form a good, educated opinion using a good, solid background in science, I'm going to hold off on my scientific blogging.  Just for a while.

Happy Chinese New Year!

The year of the Rabbit is here, folks! And with it, the Chinese start to spring (although, the snow's piled so high spring will have to be redefined for this year).  Chinese New Year is a fantastic time- food, money, and lots 'o love is all around!!  Here's some factoids about Chinese New Year that I know off the top of my head:

• Red is a lucky color.  Luck is good!
• You're supposed to clean out the house before the New Year- but....
• Kids get money in red envelopes.  That's good too!
• Oranges represent something along the lines of wealth or something good like that...
• Fish should be eaten, because the word for fish in Chinese sounds like another word that means something good....
• You should have plenty of leftovers to represent a prosperous year.
• If you're from northern China (and excuse me if I get this all wrong), dumplings are eaten as well
• Offering sticky, sweet candies to the Kitchen God ensures that he'll only say nice things about your family.  If you want the whole story (and it is kind of amusing), look it up on google!
• There's a type of cake called nian gao that's sort of sticky and sweet and really tasty and is also supposed to represent something good.  What, I don't know, but it sure does taste good!

So, in summary, this is about as far as my family celebrates Chinese New Year, save for offering candy to the Kitchen God, the dumplings, and the cleaning the house part.  And hanging decorations of various lucky and springy and wealthy words around the house.  But, we do get a lot of food!

Eccentric Teachers

I'm sure everyone has had at least one really weird teacher in their life.  In fact, if you ask me, all teachers are at least a little weird (how could they not be, after being cooped up with us kids for so long?).  But I wanted to record today for prosperity's sake- during my very serious chemistry midterm, I heard a really weird rubber-ish noise.  It's sort of the last thing you'd expect to hear while in a midterm.  So I looked  around and (without much looking, as it was bright orange) saw that my chemistry teacher was making a balloon animal.   Yes, he was not grading tests, or sleeping, or on his laptop, or doing normal teacher things, but was making some sort of four-legged creature and making a lot of noise while doing it.  Which thankfully waked me up sufficiently to finish the rest of my midterm (I was beginning to doze) but does raise some interesting questions: Where did the balloon come from?  Why did my chemistry teacher decide to make a balloon animal while we were taking the midterm?  And, Why don't other teachers make balloon animals during midterms?  It's admittedly pretty neat....