Learn Japanese Numbers 1 to 20 / My First Video Upload

So... I was surfing youtube.com and searching random things then I had remembered about this series of Japanese Lessons called "Let's Learn Japanese!" This series teaches you spoken Japanese and has these little skits about an American man called Yan-san who has just arrived in Japan. Well, you should check the series out if you're interested in the Japanese language.

Watching the embed video.. I seriously only took like 3 min to learn to count in Japanese from 1 - 20. The number system is pretty easy since it's exactly like the number system in Chinese so I think I can pretty much figure out how to count to 99.

The Haunt of Homework and other events...

I'm sure many people have experienced the feeling of being drowned in work. Well, for me, I'm being drowned in homework and when you don't do your homework it haunts you later on. I am currently in the process of catching up on some work and working on projects that should have been started awhile ago. I need to finish reading my French novel and begin research on my Chemistry report. If only I didn't leave this all to the last minute *sigh*. I basically have my day to day homework caught up on; and now I just need to work on getting up at SIX in the MORNING. I missed to many band practices, and it's not like I don't like band; but I honestly can't get up that early in the morning! So, one day I decided to go to a Junior Band practice to make up on missed mornings and I literally died in the band room that evening. The Juniors were soooo talkative and loud and obnoxious and had the attention span of an animal that had to attention span ( I can't think of any). They pretty much drove the band teacher insane; well, if I was the band teacher they would've drove me insane too!

For Thursday morning's band practice I think I'll try bring in a CD. I absolutly love this band! They're called <<女子十二>> aka "12 Girls Band", which is band that consists of twelve girls (duh!!) who play traditional Chinese instruments. They play modern music with some traditional Chinese influence, also classical style music such as Beethoven.

Today I had the chance to meet the two exchange teachers from China. I though it was quite exciting because I'm learning Mandarin Chinese. I got of opportunity to hear my mother converse with them in Chinese; and I was able to understand about 75% of what they were saying!

Nanking Massacre

Since the point of this entry is not me telling you what I know about this atrocity, you can check the link below if you have no idea what I'm going to talk about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre

I have mixed thoughts and feelings towards this tragic event which is a part of my history. Although, to my knowledge, my family was not directly affected by this event I feel that this event is important because of my ethnic background. I feel that we should not hate the Japanese people for what their ancestors did, but I can not help but have feelings of hatred in a tiny corner of my heart. I think, that I do not have enough "good" in me to forgive the soldiers for what they did, even if the Japanese government makes a public apology. I know that I'm probably getting a little too personal with this issue but why do some of the Japanese people choose to pretend that this part of their history never existed? The government event went as far as censoring this from their school text books. The things they did were so inhumane, I don't think I'll be able to write about them but the event in general should not be forgotten or ignored. It is sad to see Chinese people on the Internet posting hateful messages such as "kill all the Japanese!". These messages are very ignorant because we should not hate them for being Japanese. In fact we shouldn't hate anyone at all. But still, I think that I will never be able to have enough "good" in me to forgive the soldiers who did what they did in Nanking (Nanjing). There were a few soldiers who I will forgive, because they had personally acknowledged what they had done and had fought for justice and history, most notably Shiro Azuma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiro_Azuma).

Recycle those Cans!

Everyday during lunch, I see students throwing recyclables into the garbage even though the recycling can is only a few steps away. By just taking those extra steps those students would help contribute to reducing the amount of waste produced for disposal, save energy, and reduce the amounts of raw materials used!

Not only can you recycle bottles and cans, you can also turn used items into something useful. Here are a few examples:

Decorating old tin cans and jars which can be used at flower pots or pencil holders.
Using Pocky boxes as pencil or item holders.
Turn old clothing into stuffed animals or pillows.
Melt broken crayons into different shapes.
Turn plastic yogurt containers or ice-cream containers into piggy banks.

Many more ideas on this page:
http://www.make-stuff.com/recycling/

By recycling we can save resources and energy, and keep the environment clean!

I hate fake people...

Just as the title says, I hate fake people... with a passion.



My picture shall be explained:
So, during the parent-teacher interview tonight (I have spies, no need for parents to inform me), one of my teachers had told my parents that my participation levels were low thus causing my marks to head towards hell. This means, I should put my hands up more often to answer questions. My teacher is seriously contradicting herself because no matter how many times I raise my hand to answer questions she'll pick on someone who DIDN'T even raise their hand! Now, she doesn't even wait for students to raise their hands because she'll ask a question and immediately pick someone to answer. This got so frustrating that I refuse to raise my hands anymore and when I don't raise my hands, she goes and picks me. What is up with that? I've had this teacher since grade 8 and she was just as frustrating then as she is now.
Also, when one of my parents said that I was "shy" she replies something along the lines of "well, that is strange, because she used to joke around a lot last year." I did? I remember last years interview she said that I was really quiet and should participate more....

As for the other teachers, they gave very fair info to my parents... even the one who's giving me a very low mark and it's not low without a reason.. unlike some other teacher. Grrr!

Taking a Language Seriously

I've been learning many languages and I've never taken them seriously enough to study them well. I figured if I was going to learn Mandarin I should stop wasting time and learn it while I'm still young enough to retain thing in my ever so spongy brain. What I've done is make flash cards with commonly used characters. I bring them to school and while pretending to listen to my French teacher I would take them out and practice writing Chinese by scribbling all over my agenda! It's good fun and I can write insults without anyone understanding. I've also been searching for e-books to aid in my learning of this language and I've found a few good ones and yes I have downloaded them because I'm poor and I can't afforded to buy them and I believe that one should not be restricted to learning something because of their wealth. The book I'm using was about 150mb and teaches you the 750 most commonly used words in 25 lessons. Before starting the lessons I highlighted the words on the list and found that I could already read 120 characters. This is a small amount but I'm happy that I even able to get over the 50 character mark. I'm sure that if I had studied harder when I was younger I would be able to read much more than that, possibly in the 500-600 range.

Anyone interested in learning spoken Chinese; this is one book that I've downloaded but I am not currently studying from it:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QI09125Z

The book I'm currently using is 150mb and is called "Rapid Literacy Chinese". Maybe I'll upload it one day... but it's a huge file compared to my slow upload rate!

Picture Day

Today was a day that many dreaded and others looked forward to. Picture Day! With my luck, 30 minutes after school had started my eye began to swell up. Must I need to take allergy pills in the winter?! By the time I had my photo taken, the swelling had subsided, but we'll see how my photo turns out when we get them in a months time.

50g and 270 cal of Chocolatey Goodness!

That's right! and they're 2 bucks a bar! What is it? Purdy's Fundraiser Chocolate Bars of course!

Everyone (well, anyone in Tae Kwon Do) knows what it means when a tournament is coming up. It means fund raising time! Usually, every kid gets 1 or 2 boxes of 20 chocolate bars to sell. This year, Master Bozman is giving out a prize (some might say bribe) to the kid that sells the most chocolates. The prize? A new dobok! (Uniform) Yes, clean, crisp, and best of all, white and good smelling. Therefor I must say, "Go Kids! Earn that white, good smelling dobok!" Because, seriously, who wants a yellow, stinky, old one? eh?

"The German Kid II"

"What comes around, goes around"

This might be true. Today in physics class we received our marked quiz's and I happened to earn the highest mark and a "Brown Buck" (5 BB = 1% Bonus). When "The German Kid" found out I had gotten the highest score, he made a sexist remark, something along the lines of "What? A girl beat me!?" then he continued making more sexist remarks. My friend was not impressed but still she thinks he's cute. At least I earned myself a Brown Buck. Sadly, I am not able to duplicate these since she (my teacher) keeps a record of them.

I am sipping a mug a hot milk tea. They are not as fancy as the pictures above.

Images from:
http://www.nalichi.com (hot milk tea)
http://health.people.com.cn/GB/26466/59130/59131/4149187.html (cold milk tea)

"The German Kid"

Well, yesterday I had somehow insulted the German exchange student during our physics lab on sound resonance.

wie gehts

Angle of Incident = Angle of Reflection

Great day...eeer Morning Band.

So, this morning I had got up at 5:45 am in order to arrive at school on time for band class. Really, I didn't have to get up that early; I had set my alarm clock for 6 am but my clock is 15 min early because I am really bad about getting up in the morning. So, I eat some instant oatmeal for breakfast (an important meal, seriously!) and sip only half of my hot milk tea (very slowly), then I gathered my books and my clarinet and was out the door in the passenger seat of our Ford Mini Van. I had a feeling that my band teacher wanted me to play trombone so I had also brought along my trombone mouth piece.

A few minutes later...

I'm sitting in the trombone section with a piece of music called "Shadow Mountain Overture" and I'm looking totally confused because it's bassoon music. That wasn't a big problem since it is in the same key and clef, the problem was that the notes were so low that they were not in my range of musical intelligence (which is limited). We actually didn't do too much... well I felt that "I" didn't do much since I sat in the back playing whatever random note that I was able to figure out so early in the morning.

一日一苹果，医生远离我

An apple a day keeps the doctor away....

Well, I'm not so sure about that. I think the only thing that will keep the doctor away for me at the moment would be a good nights sleep, which sadly, is not what I am getting. Sleeping well is important because it helps us to be alert during the day which contributes to absorbing more information in class. Also, getting some shut eye allows your body to rest and stressing out your body and brain from late nighters can cause you to become stressed out and sick. Also, I find it harder to concentrate in class and I end up feeling restless and unmotivated. And, you maybe notice my writing is horrible and all over the place (not that it usually isn't).

To learn...

Aujourd'hui, je suis allé a l'école. Ce matin, j'ai voulu boire des thé mais j'ai dû aller a l'école parce que j'ai été presque retard.

Well, apart from practicing my sub-par French skills I have been reviewing what I have learned in my Physics 11 class.
Velocity of Sound in Air:
331 + 0.6T m/s
T = temperature

So, it would mean that in room temperature ( 20 degrees) the velocity of sound would be:
331 + 0.6(20) m/s = 343 m/s

I thin k that I am beginning to understand how to work the formulas we have learned about wavelengths, periods, and frequencies.

Velocity of waves = wavelength*frequency

f = 1/T
T = 1/f
1= Tf

T in this case would be the period of the waves, and (f) would be the frequency.

Anyhow, I also noticed that my English teacher somewhat resembles my grade 7 elementary school teacher in a few ways. For example:
They both like to contradict themselves.
They both have similar hair styles.
They both have accents!
and... so on.
So, I may conclude that you will NEVER get away from the people you try to get away from, therefore you MUST learn to tolerate and work with these people and use them to your advantage.

First Post

Here, I sip my cold milk tea and make my first post.

I am sure many may wonder why I named this place "life is All Purpose". I am also sure many others can figure out it's meaning. When you think about life, you can say that what you put into your life will be what you get out of it. You only have one life and it's all purpose. You can do whatever you want with it. Mold it any shape you want. Watch it fall and bring it back up. Watch it rise and let it crumble. There are many paths to take with Life. You can follow others or take your life where you want to go. Many paths are yet to be stepped upon. Many people travel the road taken, but what about the road not taken? Life, it is risky, but you only have one to play with. Here, I shall sip my cold milk tea (hot on other days), and write about the events that happen during my life upon this all-purpose blog.

I guess that did not answer the question to why I name this the way I named it. Well, in fact, I was bored and thought the name sounded sorta kinda cool.