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!