August 22, 2013

Today is back to school day. Although it is the first time for most people to come back to school, it is just like another regular day for seniors to come back to school. All the seniors have been coming back to school for preparation of SAT test during the last two weeks. However, it is still very exciting for me. I can finally meet with my friends who are in other grades. The Student Council has created an event on this day in order to prevent people from feeling bored. This event is called the speed dating, in which random people will be arranged to sit in front of each other and get to know each other. As a matter of fact, I didn't expect that I will enjoyed this activity. At first, I just thought that this activity is redundant. However, I got to know a few interesting people. I found someone who also enjoys japanese animation. In addition, I found another person who likes to play tennis. I found many people who actually shared the same interest with me. After the speed dating, each sport team began its booth. As a member of the tennis team, I am responsible to gather new students to join the tennis team. In order to attract students, I used 56 tennis balls to spell out the word "tennis". Not sure if it the effect of the decoration, many people signed up for the tennis team. Maybe they are just really devoted to tennis. Anyway, I am looking forward to the audition day, when the actual number of people joining the team will be determined.

August 14, 2013

Today I began to brainstorm my colleges with Ms. Pamela. I want to major in bioengineering. Currently, my SAT score is 2160, according to my June official SAT test. However, Ms. Pamela said that 2160 is still not enough to get into one of the top 20 colleges. She is expecting me to get a maximum of 2250, improving on reading and writing sections. However, I am afraid that I might not improve. Not only that, I might even get worse. Over the summer, I did two SAT practice tests. As it turns out, both of my scores got worst. I began to think that maybe I got lucky on the June test. I might be accidentally correct on a few unsure questions. Ms. Pamela said that if I can get above 2200 on the October test, she might consider letting me apply for MIT. When I got home after our conversation, I practiced more SAT tests, aiming for the 2200 that will get me in good colleges.

August 7, 2013

Today is the third day of my science camp trip. This morning, Professor Yuen Ron Shen was giving a lecture on the “Mysteries of Water and Ice”. He told all the students that although water is one of the most studied substances on the planet, there are still much mysteries to water. The study of of water is very important because water is an essential substance to life. Water takes 60% of human body’s volume, transports nutrients, maintains homeostasis, eliminates wastes, and helps metabolic reactions. In addition, no other liquids are commonly found in all three phases and have high surface tension. After his 90 minutes lecture, another 90 minutes were given to the students to ask questions. Only the best questions that are approved by the judges can be asked. I write a few questions to the approval panel. However, I never hear any of my questions is approved. I guess my questions are not thoughtful enough and should try harder on the next lecture. After the lunch, the field trip begins. The destination of our trip is the shenmu region. Students are separated into 12 groups of 13. Each group has a guide, talking about all the plants that we see as we move toward shenmu. The guide teaches us to distinguish gainuwai from taro. This is really important because gainuwai is poisonous. After half an hour of our trip, we finally see many trees that are taller than normal trees in front of us. We have finally reached the shenmu region. The quality of the air is really good with the phytoncid produced by the trees. There is a sky bridge where people can walk at the height equivalent to the tree top of a shenmu. Everything seem so small below us. Although this should be enjoyable, I am afraid of height. I only dare to look down a few times, other time I was just looking at the tree top next to me. After the sky bridge, we went to see the eldest tree on the mountain. It was believed to be 3,000 years old. I hope that the next time I come I can still see it alive.

July 31, 2013

Today my sister and I decided to go see the Roman exhibition at the CKS Memorial. The first thing I saw is a map of the Roman empire. I never realize how big the Roman empire is until today. When I turned to my left, I saw that famous line “Rome is not built in one day”. Other than that, there are many ancient statues and artifacts in the exhibition. All the details of the muscles and facial expression made all the beautiful statues vivid. I tried to identify many statues of gods and goddesses. However, I learned the ancient gods by their Greeks names. Unfortunately I can’t link all the statues together in my mind because they were presented with their Roman names. At the exhibition, daily life of ordinary Roman is also presented. Average Romans usually only ate a small amount of food for breakfast and lunch. Dinner is their major meal, enjoying abundant delicious food and wine. One of the coolest thing is their public bath tube. Actually, it was not just a bath tube. It had gym, sauna, and meeting rooms. Hundred and thousands pieces of woods were required to heat up all the water. Unlike modern public, men and women were separated not by rooms, but by time. In addition, one section of the exhibition shows many coins used by the Romans. Many coins were carved with the head of the ruler of each period, such as Augustus, in order to show his power. In addition, the Romans had great skills on architecture. They build a long tunnel, which is called aqueduct, with multiple arches to carry water from a far distance into the city of Rome. The Romans truly impressed me after I watched this exhibition.

July 26, 2013

Today one of the fish died. It wasn’t really a surprise to me because it had been showing signs of weakness for a long time. I took a fish clip and picked the orange fish out. It looked kind of strange to me because its color is not distributed evenly on its body. When I examined it closely, I was shocked. A big portion of its skin was peeled off, not by itself, but it looks like some other fish had been attacking the orange fish. Is it possible that the orange fish was killed by another fish in the tank? I decided to observe carefully. There are six fish left: one blue fish, one black fish, two yellow fish, one goldfish, and one last orange fish. I sat on the chair next to the tank. I saw that the last orange fish was already hurt, having part of its skin peeled off. In addition, I observed that while all other five fish swam freely in the tank, that one last orange fish always stayed close to the corner, as if it was avoiding a dangerous creature. Suddenly, the blue fish dashed toward and bite the orange fish. However, the orange fish was so weak that it didn’t even have the strength to fight back or swim away. I ran toward the tank and knocked heavily on the glass, trying to scare that blue fish off. When I turned and was about to sit back down, the fat goldfish also dashed and bite the orange fish. I was irritated and knocked on the glass again. Although some people often said that only the fittest one survives, according to the evolution theory, I still can’t stand the thought that the orange fish has been suffering every second from the wound on its body. It can’t even rest because it was frequently attacked by other fish. When I was lying on my bed that night, I can only pray that I will see that fish alive tomorrow.

July 17, 2013

Today I went to the Hallmark 100 Year Anniversary exhibition, located at the Taipei Story House. This captivating exhibition shows all the cards from the past 100 years. Although many of them are at least 100 years old, the cards in the exhibition are well-preserved. Back then, there were no e-mails. Messages had to be transmitted through physical mails. People began to make creative designs on cards in order to attract consumers. Some of them have humorous phrases written on them. Others have puzzles and mazes in them, entertaining the receivers. Some of them have three dimensional figures in them. One of the halloween cards has a witch with a stove that will pop up when you open it. There are cards made specially for different ages as well. There is one card, which contains a picture of a baby holding a number three, for three years old baby. There are cards made specifically for Valentine’s Day, Christmas, and St. Patrick’s Day. All of these cards are beautiful and well-made. I like this Hallmark 100 Year Anniversary exhibition. Maybe I will start writing on cards with creative and special design.

July 9, 2013

“Anime is just for little kid”. This is what I heard whenever adults are talking about anime. Is anime really that childish? I would say no to that question. There are anime that are targeted at children, such as Dora and Spongebob. However, there are also anime that intend to have deeper meanings. One of the anime I watched is called Psycho-Pass. In this anime, humans have developed advanced technology. They invented a machine that could scan a person’s mind and calculate a score. People who commit crimes will have higher scores. A person with a high score will be seen as a potential criminal even if he never commit any crime. The specialized police capture anyone with high scores. People thought that they are safe because all the potential criminals are in prison. No one will become a criminal or hurt anyone. However, a group of evil people develops a new helmet that could avoid the detection of the system. They began to commit crimes such as stealing and killing. The specialized police has a hard time dealing with them because their guns will not activate if the target doesn’t reach a certain score. The police can only stop the criminals with martial arts. In the end, the leader of criminals were killed by an old-fashioned revolver, the only way to kill him. I learned from this anime that laws are not all powerful. Sometimes people can find a way to escape their punishment. Citizens should do something for themselves, not depending on the government to act. After this review, do you think anime is childish? I will leave that decision to the readers.

July 5, 2013

Today I went to the Criminal Investigation Bureau. Was I in some sort of trouble? No, I had a tour in the CIB. My grandfather, who had already passed away, was a policeman. One of his students, who still has contact with us, decided to give us a tour in the CIB. I am a big fan of Crime Scene Investigation television series, especially the part where the investigators analyze the DNA and bullets through the machines in the laboratory. I’ve always had an interest in detective stories and crime investigations. I was really excited when I heard that we are going to visit that place. First, we stopped at the floor where bullets are analyzed. The station has a tank of water. People shoot the bullets into the water in order to get a bullet sample with undamaged spiral. They would later compare the sample with a bullet found in the crime scene in order to determine the murder weapon. Later, our tour guide led us to the chemical room, where many drugs are analyzed. I saw scientists looking into the microscopes for answers. One of the scientists told us all about drugs: the types of drugs, all methods the dealers might use, and how easy it is to manufacture them. Later, we visited the interrogation room. My brother sat on the chair for demonstration. There were wires put around his chest in order to measure the change of breathing rate. There were also small balloon put on the chair in order to test for the shift of the center of gravity, which will indicate anxiety. Lastly, we were brought to his office. He had a helicopter drone in his office. He allowed me to examine the helicopter carefully. Although I wasn’t allow to actually fly it, I was satisfied.

June 29, 2013

My father decided to bring the family to Changhua County to visit one of his friends. On the way to Changhua County, I was asleep while dreaming about a beautiful city that will appear when I open my eyes at the destination. However, all I saw were a few small houses and endless fields of crops when I got off the car. Although many questions were still unanswered in my mind, I still followed my father and walked towards one of the small houses. My father’s friend came out and welcomed us. After a brief conversation in the house, he led us outside and showed us his farm. I was astonished by what I saw - a huge beautiful farm decorated with many diverse and colorful vegetables. There were tomatoes, cucumbers, papayas, dioscorea oppositas, pumpkins, watermelons, and even rice. The friend of my father told us many interesting facts about each type of vegetables he had on his farm. All grains of rice were white flowers before they were fertilized and became rice. In order to plant a dioscorea opposita, a farmer needs to dig a hole three meters deep. Unlike most plants, the male and female parts of papaya trees actually grow on two different trees. At last, my father’s friend brought us to the lychee yard. He allowed us to pick as many lychees as we wished. The pleasant smell of the lychee energized us. We ate many delicious and sweet lychee as we pulled branches and branches of lychee off the trees. I sat on a nearby rock and enjoyed my twentieth lychee.

June 13, 2013

This morning, I was surprisingly excited on my way to Kevin Yao's SAT class. After spending my entire first day of summer at home yesterday, I realized how mundane and boring my summer life has been. I began to miss the time when I was studying in school with friends. Spending time with friends in school sounds more captivating than doing nothing at home. However, when I arrived, the entire school was dark and filled with a toxic smell. My curiosity grew stronger with each step closer to the office. Do I really have class today? For a second, I was worried that I did not receive some sort of notification. In the office, I saw almost all the school officers. They told me that the electricity in school was burnt out due to a short circuit. The class today was cancelled and no other students would be here. With disappointment, I turned and walked listlessly out the school. When I called my mother to pick me up, she informed me that she already left the school and wanted me to take the bus home by myself. “What an unlucky day!” I said to myself on the way home.