James Webb update

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has finally reached its orbit at Lagrange point 2. There it will stay in the shadow of Earth to take pictures. Now these won’t be ordinary pictures, while the Hubble Space Telescope has been taking photos in the visible light spectrum, the light we can see, the JWST will be taking photos in the ultraviolet spectrum. This will allow us to effectively see through any sort of cosmic clouds which have previously blocked our view. The photos will be taken in the ultraviolet, translated into black and white, and then colorized to give us some of the most incredible pictures we have ever seen. The telescope can’t take photos right away though, it will take about six months to cool (it needs to be -233 C to detect ultraviolet light) calibrate, and undergo incredible amounts of testing. When photos begin to be taken and released our understanding of our universe as we know it may very well be flipped on its head.

James Webb Space Telescope: How does it work and what will it see? - BBC  Science Focus Magazine
Photo credit: NASA

My top 10 mlb free agents + where they’re signing (1-4)

#4 Trevor Story

Story is one of the few players that can hit for power and contact while also being an elite runner. His 2021 season was very uncharacteristic for Story, but he still manged to post a fairly decent year slashing .251/.329/.471. He also hit 20+ home runs, drove in 75 runs, and stole 20 bases as well.

Story will be switching divisions an inking a 8 year/126 million deal with the Texas Rangers

#3 Kris Bryant

Bryant, who was traded in July to San Fransisco will not be eligible for the qualifying offer so he will go straight to free agency. He was an all-star in 2021; hitting 25 home runs and drove in 70+ runs. Not only does he provide a plus-middle of the order bat, but he is a plus defender in the field. Bryant is able to play all three outfield spots and both corner infield positions.

Bryant will be back in the orange and black signing a 5 year/115 million dollar contract with the Giants

#2 Corey Seager

Seager is arguably the best shortstop in baseball, when healthy of course. He only played in 95 games this season and was still an elite hitter. Seager posted a .306/.394/.521 slash with 16 home runs and 57 rbi’s. He is a plus defender at short and has the arm to make the move to third once he gets into the later part of his career.

Seager inks a 10 year/330 million dollar contract with the Yankees

#1 Carlos Correa

Correa is a top 3 shortstop in the game of baseball, an arguably a top 10 player too. He is 26 and only getting better, which is evident by his gold glove award in 2021. Correa hit .279 with 26 homers, 92 driven in, 34 doubles, and a 131 ops+. He was an All-Star and finished in the top 5 of AL MVP voting

Correa will re-up in Houston but not on the length many would expect, I think he signs a 3 year/145 million dollar deal with the Astros.

My Favorite Lyrics from All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version)

I haven’t really been into Taylor Swift’s music since elementary school, but I really like the 10-minute version of All Too Well. Here are my favorite lyrics from it.

“Til we were dead and gone and buried 
Check the pulse and come back swearing it’s the same 
After three months in the grave”

Love the metaphor here. I feel like I’ve also been in a toxic, loveless relationship when I hear this lyric.

“You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath”

If your partner is trying to hide your relationship when you’ve told them you don’t want to, that’s a red flag. They’re definitely doing something shady if they’re completely against having a public relationship when you want one.

“And you call me up again just to break me like a promise 
So casually cruel in the name of being honest”

This lyric is really pretty. I love it. I don’t like people who say mean things and then try to excuse their words because they’re “just saying” or “just being honest.” Like, it’s not that hard to not be a jerk.

“You said if we had been closer in age maybe it would have been fine 
And that made me want to die”

This lyric definitely sums up the fundamental problem with Taylor’s relationship with the unnamed man (who is Jake Gyllenhaal). Taylor was only 20 when she started dating a 29-year-old. It might not seem like a big gap because they were both legal adults, but that’s the same age gap between a 16-year-old and a 25-year-old. That perspective makes the age gap clearly inappropriate. Also, Taylor was barely an adult. She had only been of age for two years, whereas Jake had been an adult for over ten years. She realizes later that he took advantage of her because she was young and is ashamed of it.

“But you keep my old scarf from that very first week 
Cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me”

Here’s another lyric that points out the problem of their relationship. Her scarf reminds him of innocence because she was barely an adult when he started dating her. She was young and innocent, and she didn’t realize that their relationship was inappropriate until it was over. Jake went after her because she was young, pretty, and didn’t know any better.

“Wind in my hair, you were there 
You remember it all”

This lyric is a reprise of the end of the first chorus. Taylor changes the lyric from “I was there I remember it all.” to address Jake and say “you were there you remember it all.” It points out that Taylor wasn’t solely at fault for ending up in a bad relationship with someone too old for her. Jake was also there, and Jake knew exactly what he was doing. He remembers everything too, but he doesn’t have the same shame around the relationship that Taylor does. Taylor didn’t know that the relationship wasn’t okay, but Jake did and he pursued her anyways.

“And I was never good at telling jokes, but the punch line goes 
I’ll get older, but your lovers stay my age”

I love the blatant call-out. It’s also completely accurate. Jake’s current girlfriend, Jeanne Cadieu, is 25 years old. He’s 40 years old. It doesn’t take a psychologist to realize all the reasons why this isn’t okay at all, but for reference – Jake would be 21 years old (the legal drinking age in the U.S.) while Jeanne was 6 (in 1st grade in the U.S.). With an age gap this big, it doesn’t matter if they’re both of legal age right now because it doesn’t change the fact that there’s a huge gap in maturity, experience, and understanding of right and wrong. The age gap is completely ridiculous and frankly disgusting.

In conclusion, Jake Gyllenhaal is a creep and a borderline pedophile. If this statement seems like an exaggeration, consider the fact that if Jake was attracted to a 25-year-old when he was 40 and a 20-year-old when he was 29, it’s reasonable to assume that he was attracted to minors when he was in his early and mid-twenties. He has a pattern of dating people that are much younger than him.

I really like this song even though the content is sad. I reccomend listening to it.

Video by Taylor Swift on YouTube

Taylor Swift: Red (Taylor's Version) Album Review | Pitchfork

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/taylor-swift-red-taylors-version/

I had Covid

I tested positive for Covid over winter break and it t’was not a fun experience. I had no symptoms, except I slept for 13 hours the night I tested positive. I had to quarantine for 10 days and it sucked. The only good that came out of my quarantine was that I came out of retirement for my Fortnite career. Having Covid was not an enjoyable experience, I could not hang out with friends, I could not go to the gym, and I could not go to work. I highly recommend not getting Covid.

Food Safety and the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) | FDA
pc: fda.gov

Covid decides to run it back

As of last week, I have now gotten covid two consecutive winter breaks. My take on Covid, at least how it affects me, is that it is more of an inconvenience than anything.

Not being able to taste sucks. It makes food borderline unenjoyable. I have been postmating food from all over trying to get a taste of something, but it all tastes like nothing. It straight-up sucks.

Other than that, I am congested and whatever, which isn’t too bad at this point, and I have brain fog. Maybe I don’t have brain fog but it is a solid excuse to procrastinate.

The most annoying parts are not being able to see my friends, play soccer, or stay caught up on school because I have a LAUNDRY LIST of shit to do, half of which I don’t even understand.

I am kind of concerned about OVS’s covid approach. Without guidelines changing, I predict that school will just become a place where the new variant spreads semi-easily. I hope that school provides online as an option at least, as leaving students who are sick in the dark about their schoolwork makes it very difficult to keep up, and if I hadn’t already had covid I would want to have the option to not have to go to school and get covid.

photo credit: CDC

Do You Remember That Time… 2020…

Photo Credit: Tuscaloosa News

Do you remember when we got an alert about the new virus, the Coronavirus (COVID-19), and we were all so scared about it in 2020? People die every day, plus, we know nothing about this new virus. We stayed home and used Rubbing alcohol to spray everywhere when we got home right away. We began to lose the ability to connect with the other person. Sometimes we call our family or friends saying Hi to them and talk about how they are doing recently just to try to imagine we were talking to a “real” person. After a year in online class or work, we lost the motivation to do anything, we only have that little energy left to keep scrolling on our phones. Watching the public prank videos on Youtube from years before, and started to imagine when am I going to talk and meet new friends after the pandemic. At last, we all laughed and cried to celebrate the 2021 new year at home.

It’s only been two years but feels like it happened a long time ago.

When Omicron came up almost at the end of  2021, it didn’t scare anyone much. I noticed that people started to see this type of virus as a common cold. People don’t wear masks around, even gather with another person in the same room. People tell others that they have COVID, but they don’t care about it as long as they know they are fully vaccinated. Time has changed the way we see or think about the virus. The Covid deaths have begun to spike quickly after people gathered to celebrate the 2022 new year without putting their masks on. However, I wish we could go back to “normal” life when we all go to school or the amusement park without having our masks on.

Photo Credit: ABC News (2021)

New Games on the Block

Recently there have been some games that have been released or partially released to those who pre-ordered them. Some of the primary games in this category are Call of Duty Vanguard and Battlefield 2042. There are some other games that have come out recently but these are the big two in my personal opinion.

(these are in no particular order of how much I like the game)

First off is Call of Duty Vanguard, this game is a classic Cod (Cod is call of duty for short) it has the basic ideas that show up in most Cods. These characteristics include similar game modes and attachment addons. Gamemodes are as follows Free for all, team deathmatch, capture point, and search and destroy. I look at most Cods as of recently is the Developers just gave the previous game a new coat of paint and called it good, making it not one of my top choices for games.

Image Credit: Forbes

The next game I want to talk about is Battlefield 2042. Battlefield is a first-person shooter or fps for short like Cod but it has its own unique quirks and game modes. To start Battlefield has 3 primary game modes, one is called conquest, in this game mode, you and your team are tasked with controlling as many points on the map as possible while the enemy has the exact same goal making it a fight to the death over point control. The second is called Breakthrough, in this game mode, you and your team have to take points in a consecutive order making your way through the map, because of the points needing to be taken in a certain order it creates more of a centered combat area as opposed to Conquest where it’s just everyone running around. The final game mode is called Hazard zone and it is quite the new idea for the Battlefield franchise. In Hazard zone, you and your team of four are dropped somewhere on the map and are tasked with collecting data drives and extracting via a helicopter to earn in-game currency. Overall Battlefield is built to withstand the abuse that players with put it through because of this it is not made once a year like Call of Duty making the Battlefield games feel more polished.

Image Credit: Game News 24

HELP! What should my senior quote be?

Hello here is a list of some of the quotes I am considering using for my senior quote. If you could please provide feedback on which quote I should use it would be much appreciated, thanks.

  1. “You asked for my hustle, I gave you my heart” – Kobe Bryant
  2. “Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn’t work hard” – Tim Notke
  3. “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain” – Harvey Dent
  4. “Nobody cares, work harder” – Lamar Jackson
  5. “I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them” – Andy Bernard
  6. “Job’s not finished” – Kobe Bryant
  7. “Money talks, wealth whispers” – Dorothy Donegan

Senior 2022 Inside Senior Logo BW Stock Vector - Illustration of graphic,  generation: 219141153

Photo credit: Dreamstime.com

I would rather die than pick one of the choices

There is no right or wrong answer for every decision in life except the test in school, and that’s the problem. Every time I need to decide between two things, it can really take me forever. I just have no idea what to pick. I am really worried about myself at this point. My friends give me some advice that is to analyze the details in the choices, and picking one is beneficial for me. This is interesting. I know drinking too much boba isn’t good for my health, at the same time I can’t live without boba. You might think if I can’t live without boba then why not just buy it? The only concern I have is money. I don’t want to spend too much money. Now, I have to decide whether I should spend money on boba or not. My head is running a political election every time this happens. I just need someone to guide me on what I should do. Why is life so hard for me!

Here is a list of what I hate when someone ask me:

  1. What do you want to eat for dinner?
  2. Is the answer B or C?
  3. Did you like your mom more or your dad?
  4. What should we do next?
  5. What college do you really want to go to?
  6. Do you like Dr. Pepper or Root Beer?
  7. What is your favorite subject?
  8. If me and your mom fall into the water, who would you save first?
  9. Do you want to hangout?
  10. How are you?

Nerdy Fun Fact of why you shouldn’t drink too much boba

The fructose in boba will be converted into “purines” during metabolism , and uric acid will be produced after decomposition. Under normal circumstances, uric acid will be excreted in urine. Once the drainage problem occurs, the crystallization will accumulate in the joints and bone tissue, causing inflammation, swelling pain. The more sugar intake and more , the level of uric acid can also be increased accordingly.

Photo Credit: The Good Place from Netflix

iPhone 13!

Recently iPhone 13 just came out. I have been using my iPhone XR for almost three years which means I’m thinking of buying a new phone. Furthermore, I have turned eighteen recently. In Taiwan age of eighteen means, you are an adult. I’m able to drive, go to clubs and do anything. In my family, we usually have a tradition that we celebrate, go to a fancy restaurant to congrats we have turned to an adult. Yet, I’m far from my family while I’m studying here in America. All I could do is celebrate with my friends. For me, I don’t feel the changes from a child to an adult, but I feel sad that I couldn’t be with my family during this huge transition. After my birthday, one of my friends is using the same phone as mine, and he wants to upgrade his phone. At this time,  we have decided on buying a new phone together. I have decided to spend this much money to give myself an eighteenth birthday gift. I never spend this much money. I feel accomplish and happy. On the other hand, I feel it’s kind of a waste of money that my old phone didn’t break at all and still buy a new one. Nevertheless, I have done a lot of research that if the user using below than iPhone 11, iPhone 13 can be a great upgrade. There is a lot of features that have been upgraded including the battery life, the super retina XDR display, ceramic shield, and the A15 chip. If you are a user thats using iPhone 11 or below, it could be a huge upgrade for you.

Photo Credit: Apple iPhone 13