India by: Ashwin S.

Well I’m in India right now visiting my relatives. Internet isn’t that good. So I decided to check out the blog and here I am. Well, I’m with my uncle who’s a retired military doctor, who’s a heart surgeon. I’m having seeing my relatives. Playing video games and running around outside. It’s really hot and the monsoon hasn’t been doing its work here in Uttar Pradesh ( a state in India). I went to Agra recently and saw the Taj Mahal recently and it was one of the most amazing things I’ve seen. One of the things I’m not enjoying is the huge electricity shortage. In the place where I am the electricity goes away every hour. It goes away because not enough people pay for it and a lot of people who don’t want to pay for it just tap electricity from electricity cables. Well that’s it for now.

What should be Jonas’s first memory? by: Ashwin Singh

In the book The Giver , the giver gives memories of the past to Jonas. The first memory Jonas received was sledding down a snowy hill. If I was the Giver I would have given the memory of the ocean. That would have shown Jonas the beauty of the outdoors and show him that the world is much bigger than just the community. It would also ease him into receiving memory because there would be no pain involved and it would be relaxing.

Pacific Morning

From flikrCC

 

The Giver Personal Assignment Choice By: Ashwin S.

In the book we are currently reading, The Giver, the main character lives in a utopia (a perfect society) where everybody is the same, where there are no animals and where there are very strict rules. In this society when you turn twelve you get an assignment, which will be your job for the rest of your life. If I were to pick assignment, I would be an engineer so I could design what the place would look like to my liking.

iMovie Madness!!! By: Ashwin Singh

imovie logo

iMovie logo From Wikimedia Commons

As you might know from my last post we were just working on a tech project. For the tech project we had to make a minute long movie, or some other presentation, about apps for the iPad ot other related technology. As I said in my last post, my partner on the project edited our video on iMovie, but forgot to save it, and then he left early from school because he was sick! Even worse was that the project was due that day and I didn’t know how to use iMovie!!! I was really worried about what I would do but with the help of my friend Ian, I was able to finish my tech project, learn how to use iMovie and the project turned out great! Now I know that whenever I need help or don’t get something, I can always get a friend to help me!

What Went Wrong On Apollo 13 By: Ashwin S.

Apollo 13 Takeoff

Apollo 13 Takeoff From Wikimedia Commons

We just finished a movie called Apollo 13 because in the book we just read called Cosmic they get back to earth using the way Apollo 13’s crew got back to earth. I did some research and this is what I found out, that caused the problem on Apollo 13.

First off Mission Control had requested that the crew stir the oxygen tanks, a task required to prevent the oxygen ‘slush’ from stratifying. The Teflon-insulated wires that provided electricity to the stirrer motor were damaged, causing a large fire when electricity was passed through them. The fire heated the surrounding oxygen, increasing the pressure inside the tank above its nominal 1,000 PSI (7 MPa) limit, and causing the tank to explode. The cause of the explosion was unknown at the time, however, and the crew and Houston conjectured that a meteoroid had struck the SM or even the Lunar Module (LM).

This explosion caused damage to other parts of the Service Module, including, critically, the number one oxygen tank. Because the Command/Service Module(CSM) relied on the oxygen tanks to generate electricity, damage to number one tank meant that very little power was available for the spacecraft. The Command Module (CM) contained batteries for use during re-entry, after the SM was jettisoned, but these would only last about ten hours. Because this power needed to be saved for re-entry, the crew survived by using the LM, still attached to the CSM, as a “lifeboat”. The LM “lifeboat” procedure had actually been created during a training simulation (in the simulator) not long before the flight of Apollo 13.

Don Quixote Book Review By: Ashwin S

Don Quixote

Don Quixote And His Squire Sancho Panza From Wikimedia Commons

 

First thing you need to know about the book is that it’s an old book. Part 1 was published in 1605 and part 2 was published in 1615. The version in which I’m reading is translated  by Edith Grossman. It’s translated because the original version is written in Spanish by Miguel De Cervantes.  Don Quixote is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age. Don Quixote regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published. On some lists it is even considered “the best literary work ever written.” This book is about Alonso Quijano, who reads too many chivalric books and tries to revive chivalry. It is one of the best books ever written and is very humorous.

Science Olympiad by: Ashwin S.

Science Olympiad Logo

From Wikimedia Commons

Two week’s back I went and participated in the science olympiad regionals competition. The whole team had been working hard since the beginning of the year. Our goal was to get to the states competition. To get to states you have to place in the top 5 schools. The way that the competition works is that all school s have to participate in events. The higher you place in a event the less points you get. If you don’t compete on a event you get minus 25 points. Your trying to get the least amount of points possible. I competed in three events. I did Mission Possible where you have to make a machine that does a number of tasks and then completes a final task, it has to follow all the rules the judges set though. I also did Reach for the Stars where we learn stuff about the stars and then take a test. My final event was Food Science where you have to learn the chemistry of food then take a test on it. When I came to the competition I was really nervous, but it turns out we had a ton of free time at the competition. We used most of our time taking turns playing Minecraft on peoples computers. My first event was Reach for the Stars. The test was really long and much harder than we expected but we still did well. My second event was Food Science which had a short test but we messed up on the test. My final event was Mission Possible which we did super well in! In the awards ceremony we were really scared because we weren’t sure whether we made it to states. Then they announced that Durham Academy made 5th place and qualified for states! I even got a second place medal for Mission Possible! Hopefully, we can make it to nationals but we have to make 1st place to make it. It was a really fun experience and you should try joining the team too! They have awesome snacks at the competition. Wish us luck for the states competition!!!

Life As A Game By: Ashwin

One of my favorite games is Risk. I like it because it has a lot of strategy and a little bit of luck unlike Sorry. One reason why I like it is the way it represents real life. How people rise to the top and take out others. How cut throat real life is and how not everybody can be a winner. But the thing I sometimes find I don’t like about Risk is that it’s so intense that it can ruin friendships and make you really bitter.Otherwise Risk is a fun game which everybody will enjoy.

Vocabulary Story by: Ashwin S.

In class Mrs.Donnelly told us to write a paragraph with at least ten word from the one hundred words we learned and instead of writing a paragraph I wrote a story. All the words in italics are the vocabulary words. Note: Man is a character that’s why Man is capitalized, there also uses of the word man uncapitalized which is just a regular noun not a character.
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He woke up to in the hospital. “Who am I?” was the first thing he thought. The hospital looked like the average hospital. People dressed in white, the bed sheets white, almost everything white, except the blue curtains. It would have seemed like a decent place but the smell of death lingered in the hospital unnerving all those who entered it. The nurse came up to the Man. The nurse had red hair and a cheery face with a clipboard held in her hand.
She said “ Good morning! I hope you’re feeling better. You came very close to dying.”
“ Where am I?”
“ Your in the Delaware Hospital. You’ve been in a comatose state for the last three months.”
“ What am I doing here?”
“ You were found in the Delaware River floating down, luckily we found you! There’s just one problem…”
“What?”
“ For some reason there is no record of you ever being born, there is not a single piece of identification for you. Do you remember anything?”
“No I don’t.”
“ Well let’s dwell over that later, you must be ravenous would you like something to eat?”
“Sure.”
The Nurse went out and brought a sandwich in for the man. The Man scarfed down the sandwich in seconds. The Man didn’t talk very much. He couldn’t, because for some reason he had a deep feeling of remorse. A man suddenly walked in. He was dressed in a black coat and wore a hat. He was smoking a cigar, even though few still smoked cigars because it had huge amounts of carcinogen. The Man found him very formidable. The man also held in his hand a staff which was embellished with jewels. The nurse jumped up in fear, but before she could react the man shot her in  the head. The man turned on the radio lying on the desk next to the Man which gave a mellifluous tune.
The man said “ Nice to see you again, I see you’ve been dormant for a while.”
The Man replied “ Who the heck, are you?”
“You’ll find out, but first I’ll have to introduce you to my flamboyant friends, they would love to see you again.”
The man then gave a ludicrous laughter then took out a cloth and covered the Man’s nose with it. The Man slowly went back to sleep, to the beautiful music coming from the radio.

To Be A Man, Or Not To Be… By: Ashwin S.

If I was an adult I would get a Phd in a subject. I would also like to know 6 languages. I would have a dog and own a car. I would have a nice house in Phuket,Thailand . I also want to write a few books.  These are what I would do If I were an adult. If you’re reading this blog post you would probably think that I’m not being creative enough and not aiming high enoguh. But what I have learned is that, few people can reach that hight. Some people say that you can do anything but that’s not true. The sooner people realize that the better they’ll do later in life because they’ll be ready for disappointments. What I think people should do is try there best, and if success comes with it, so be it. Even more important is to keep on trying no matter how much disappointment you go through.