Tag: blog

My Updated Thoughts On Blogs

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I think one of my first ever blogs was on how much I really don’t like them. I talked for a decent-sized paragraph about how they are annoying, a waste of time, and how I wish we did not have to do them. However, recently, I have had a little bit of a relapse of judgment regarding blogs. I still think it is hard sometimes to come up with a prompt. This week is an example of that, as I could think of nothing else to write about but a topic I have done before. It’s not very original also in the sense that I am writing about what I am writing, if that makes sense. Anyway, although I still feel like coming up with prompts is difficult sometimes, I am starting to enjoy the blog-writing process more. More often, ideas will come to me immediately that actually seem fun and interesting to talk about, and I don’t feel like I am forcing anything when writing about them. Additionally, I have started at least brainstorming and, most of the time, writing my blogs a week in advance. That way, they feel like less of a chore and struggle to get them submitted on time before the Friday midnight deadline. I feel like I kinda see the point of them more in the past. They are a creative outlet – a place where we can write without feeling confined to a story idea that we don’t have any interest or passion regarding. In conclusion, I have less hatred than I have had in the past on the subject of blog writing but don’t try to make me admit that out loud.

Cartoons about Blogging and Bloggers | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice

PC: https://larrycuban.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/20070707_ps-blogger.jpg

Formula 1 Makes me Angry

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Pretty much since the beginning of COVID, I’ve been a pretty big Formula One fan. Although my favorite driver/team changes frequently, my undying hate for Redbull and Max Verstappen has not changed. With the increasing amount of seasons of Drive to Survive and Redbull’s latest success, half of Formula one media either involves Christian Horner or Max. I cannot stand it, the father-son relationship between Max and Christian is appalling. The amount of money that Redbull is willing to dish out to make Max happy is so annoying. They design the entire car for this literal child to just crash into people and the wall. He’s far too aggressive and dangerous for Formula one which is exemplified greatly by the last couple of seasons of Formula One. He actively breaks every rule he can and was even given his World Championship on a silver platter. I have no idea how this spoiled excuse of a driver has a seat in one of the top teams. I get that he’s fast, but he has almost double the number of crashes as he has podiums. I bet half of RB’s budget is spent on repairing this kid’s car because he clearly can’t keep it away from the wall or other people’s cars. Max is really just a Mustang driver who made it too far in motorsport.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Similarly, if you watch the sky sports coverage, and/or Drive to Survive, you’re probably aware of the absurd amount of Christian Horner in both. The only team principal that’s ever interviewed mid-race in the Sky Sports coverage is Christian Horner and he never has anything useful to say. Not only that but he probably has more screen time on Drive to Survive than every single driver or team principal. All because he eats this reality TV crap up for dinner. I’ve never seen anyone on any sports-related reality tv who likes to hear themselves talk more than Christian. And all he does is sit there like an idiot and complain about Mercedes and Todo who never did anything to them except win. Oh no, Mercedes is better than you. I understand that it sucks to lose especially for an extended period of time, but why do you have to whine and moan about it for an entire season of DTS it’s debilitating. I just want a normal season of Drive to Survive where Christan shuts up and we actually get other voices than his dumb British accent and his ugly eStAtE.

Talentless

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Do ya’ll ever feel talentless? Like there’s no special skill you have thats like unique to you? Because I feel like that all the damn time, and have been felling it even more recently. Like I’m a solid writer, I get A’s and B’s on my english papers, and somewhat similar grades on my journalism stories (so long as I remember to submit art). But like I don’t really have something special. Like I’m not artsy at all, I can’t draw or paint for shit, partially because I don’t know how but also my hands are so damn shaky I always mess it up. I can run like ok, I’m not like Ben running 18 minute 3-mile races, but I can run. I’m not crazy good at soccer or volleyball, I’d say I’m pretty average at both. I managed to make starting squad for volleyball but it’s also the first year we’ve had a boys team since like forever. I’m not especially gifted in terms of smarts. Not like Sarita who is somehow naturally good at every subject, she always sets the curve in AP Chem which lowkey pisses me off because it means she gets a 100 or close to it and I get like a B or an A- at best. I can like build shit, but I’m not the only one who can. There’s Caleb and Ben and Emanuel who are all pretty good at Robotics, though Ben and Emanuel don’t really like it all that much. I can’t play music, I mean I can kinda play the drums, not like Sully but I can play. It’s not like I’m crazy good at piano or guitar or something which are instruments that people actually can listen to alone like on a camping trip or something. I can’t sing at all, like at all, It’s pretty rough when I try. I dunno it just feels shitty sometimes you know? Like I wish I had something that set me apart like that, like in a positive way because believe me there are plenty of things that make me different in a negative way. I dunno maybe I haven’t found what makes me different yet, but I have a feeling that I won’t find it anytime soon, if it exists at all.

An Artistic Mindset Is Fundamental for Business Leaders | IE Insights
Photo Credit- ie.edu https://www.ie.edu/insights/articles/an-artistic-mindset-is-fundamental-for-business-leaders/

Poop Maps

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It’s march again, and since last year we have been running a poop maps league. Basically, “poop maps” is an app where you log your poops and it keeps track of them, and then of course you can make a group of poopers and it counts all the poops you’ve made since you joined the group. So this marks the second annual poop maps competition.

Last year, I think Adam won the poop maps league, his in-game username is “prunesensei” referring to a very hard dry poop. The usernames themselves are just as funny as the whole poop league competition. Mine’s “thepoojeww” Logan’s is “dunmper_daddy” and of course, there’s “emanuelzagatalogabson”. This year I’m hoping to make it in the top 5. I don’t think winning is gonna be possible this year as Ben has about six poops in one day, and if he keeps that pace up he’s projected to hit 180 poops this month, which is just a crazy number.

Anyway, I’ll keep you all updated as the competition moves forward.

Poop Map - Apps on Google Play
Credit: play.google.com/poopmaps

Snowboarding

udarsh318Leave a comment

So, personally, I love snowboarding, I’ve been doing it for like 9 or 10 years I think. I learned at Mt Bachelor in Oregon which, is a pretty cool mountain if you ask me. It’s got some pretty sick runs and the summit is super sick. Honestly, the best mountain to snowboard on, way better than Mammoth. Mammoth is pretty solid though, I gotta say. Snowboarding is one of the best sports out there, everyone should try it, except maybe Ella, she’d be horrible. Anyway, there’s a lot you can do too. Like the jumps and stuff, so sick. And when there’s a lot of powder it’s like floating in the air. It’s so cool, you like don’t even feel the snow. Anyway go try it, except Ella, she’d be bad.

Mt. Bachelor Ski Area, Terrain, Snow, Ratings
Photo Credit- powderhounds.com

Why America sucks

udarsh318Leave a comment

So, I know what you’re thinking, here we go some privileged American white kid is gonna complain about the small inconveniences he experiences in his country. But no, that’s not what this is. I’m talking about the real problems. The massive amount of poverty and homelessness, gun violence, crime rates, education, healthcare, all that bad stuff. So many people in this country think its the best country in the world, but in reality we are not in even in the top ten in education, over 40 million Americans are living in poverty, and recently more and more books on historical tragedies are being banned every year. Our healthcare system is probably the most corrupt industry in our country. The first thing you do when going to the hospital is fill out some personal information and then show them your insurance card, that insurance decides what level of care you get. You have a sprained knee? If your insurance is good you’ll get an x-ray, maybe even an MRI (which really isn’t necessary they just want the money). If your insurance is bad, you get ice, Advil, and an ace bandage. This disparity in levels of care goes all the way up, if you’re rich with cancer you have a much higher chance of surviving, if you’re poor, you might not even know you have cancer till you’re already dead. People get turned away at hospitals for not having health insurance or means to pay a hospital bill. Then there’s our actual government system, and the corruption within it. All senators are paid a maximum of $174,000 yet the average net worth of a senator is $14,000,000. Nothing goes through without the support of corporations. This government is supposed to be by the people, for the people, and of the people, but it has become a massive oligarchy in which the poor get poorer while the rich get richer. Corporations have blocked laws to make the government essentially calculate your taxes for you, from there they send a check or a bill to your house, but companies like TurboTax have paid senators off to keep it from passing, allowing them to keep their profits. “Healthcare” companies have paid senators and house members to keep universal healthcare bills from going through, as well as running smear campaigns calling universal healthcare socialism and saying this like the government would have access to your medical records. This is just straight-up false. This country is probably among the most corrupt in the world, and we are doing nothing to stop it. The media has turned us against each other so we don’t see what’s going on behind the scenes. The worst part is nothing will ever change, people are far too greedy to allow anything to change. For now, we’re just gonna have to deal.

American Flag Etiquette - Displaying the American Flag

PC: Country Living

James Webb update

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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

In Space this week

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Well, some debris might muck up the International Space Station. The Russians did a counter-satellite missile test, destroying one of their own satellites. While this practice is not uncommon, as it is done by many countries including the United States, most of the time it is done to satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Russia, however, destroyed a satellite in a much higher orbit, causing many large pieces of trackable debris, though these are not the real danger, it also created thousands of small untrackable pieces headed straight to the ISS. The astronauts onboard the ISS had to go into the small escape capsules on the station and wait until the ISS was out of the debris field. This has caused massive uproar amongst countries that have satellites in Earth’s orbit. It has not only put experiment and surveillance satellites at risk, but it also puts the lives of the entire crew of the ISS into harm’s way. As of today, the majority of the debris has fallen into Earth’s atmosphere and burned up leaving the ISS in the clear and allowing the crew to continue their duties on the station.

Shotgun of debris from India satellite explosion threatens ISS astronauts

James Webb

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So, as many of you already know, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched a couple weeks ago. Now that might not seem like such a crazy thing, but it most definitely is. This telescope is the most complex telescope humankind has produced to date, it has the ability (hopefully) to see the first light emitted from the Big Bang 13 billion years ago. Now that fact is confusing to some, how can we see back in time? Well, basically, light has a speed of 299 792 458 m / s to be exact (approximately 670616629 mph). We measure this in terms of distance, as lightyears. Say a super bright lightbulb is turned on somewhere ten light-years from earth, it would take ten years for the light to reach us so that we could see it. Now if we take that principle and scale it up, the further we look, the longer it’s taking for us to see that light, so if we look at something 13 billion lightyears away, then we are seeing 13 billion years in the past, and since the universe is constantly expanding finding something 13 billion lightyears away is not very difficult. Anyway back to JWST, it will be in an orbit we have called “L2” which is just behind the Earth so it will constantly be in Earth’s shadow, it will be 1.5 million km (1 million miles) from the earth, which is far past the moon. From that orbit, it will take pictures. A lot of pictures. Of course, our time with the JWST is limited so NASA has allocated certain hours for researchers for an approved project. This telescope will bring in a new era of research, we may learn the origins of the universe, and if not we will still learn so many things from this telescope. Things like planets with potential life, we will learn about the formation of galaxies, and many many more things. I am excited to see the pictures this incredible telescope will take.

James Webb Space Telescope: how our launch of world's most complex observatory will rest on a nail-biting knife edge
Webb's Orbit

Photo credit: Space. Com

Covid

udarsh318Leave a comment

So, as of right now my test results haven’t come back, but I’m pretty sure I have covid. My mom and dad both came back positive when they were tested, and seeing as I have been quite sick over the last week I’m pretty damn sure its covid. My mom is holding out hope that I’m negative so I can go to school, but I’m less optimistic. The actual sickness hasn’t been all that bad most of the time. The worst part for me are the headaches and the dizziness. Plus I’ve had these weird things I call “brain shocks” that I normally get when I miss my meds. I really don’t know how to describe them other than brain shocks. Thats like what they are, they suck ass though. When I was taking a different medication, Pristyq, they would get so bad that I would blink and get them. They suck, a lot. Anyway, I’m hoping I can go to school soon but I kinda doubt it. I probably won’t be back till next week, which sucks because I’m gonna get behind in AP chem and that is not good at all. Luckily it gives me more time to work on my research paper for english that I still have not finished. Anyway, long story short, don’t get covid, its not a vibe.

Sick Flu Vector Illustration Poor Guy Stock Vector (Royalty Free) 43639450

photo credit: shutterstock