Walking around manhattan

Lately I've been feeling the need for travel. I suppose that this feeling has been building up over the years, but now that I have chances to quench it I find it has more force over me. And since I was out of school for most of this week (I go back tomorrow) I has given a lot of free time. So Tuesday and Wednesday I walked around lower Manhattan with a cousin of mine. She does not get to come to Manhattan much seeing has how her life is centered in Brooklyn so she was more than willing to tag along with me. On the first day we walked aimlessly from 14th and 9th to about 7th and Bleecker street. The sky was overcast, looming over us with the threat of rain but it was still fun to simply walk around with doing nothing else but looking at the sights. Wednesday was a bit more interesting though. We managed to reach chinatown and the financial district. Its an odd thing, walking from one side of an island to the next. Though at that point of the island its not that wide across, it still felt like walking through so many different little words. It really did make me realize that I and so many others take this city for granted. Also that I really want a camera. If I had one would I'd have so many great pictures to post up here now. Thus, I want to see if I can get my hands on one for my birthday.

OLPC wiki update and end of the Semester bliss

I've finally got a chance to take some pictures of the OLPC Friday afternoon. I've been planning to do so for a while now, but my school work and other life occurences kept popping out. Most of the pictures are to go on the wiki but I took some extra ones to post here. I really thought I needed to add some pictures on this blog.




Friday also happened to be the last day of the semester. I got all of my work out of the way and I took my math final. Now that final was really a bit of a joke. I never had an easier test in my life. I when went back through it a second time to make sure I was not just being over confident - when I first finished I looked around the room only to see that my friends had the same puzzled look on their faces. Only now does my teacher's comment of how the test will be an A on a golden plater make sense.
I now have until next friday, when the next term begins, to stay home and rest. However, I plan to go out on tuesday and thrusday. Tuesday I want to meet up with an old friend of mine and Thurday I hopefully have to go for an interview and then head to school to sit in on a friend's presentation. In addition to all of this I want to make sure I stay on top of my MOUSE work and languages. I have the time for it all so I better use it properly.

linguistic social networking websites

I've began to play around with something that seems to be the social language learner's dream. livemocha.com is the one i'm currently using. I think its a pretty cool idea. You get to socialize (if thats your thing...) and learn something new. Also you get to talk to people who you, most likely, would never talk to. As a matter-a-fact, as I was writing this post, someone learning English sent me a message and we started talking. It was interesting to hear her reason behind learning this language. It just made me think about how much of a good thing these sites are.

I'm also wondering about what it can do for me. But in order to find out the results I need to use it a bit more, thus I may post some more about it later. In the meantime, I must say thanks to the person who informed me about it. Thank you ted.

Macbook Air

Apple recently released a new entry to the Macbook line called the Macbook Air. At first glance it looks really nice. I love the fact that one can use the trackpad to do all of these new techniques and what not. Also it would be great for carrying around. But I just can't see myself buying one. I'm currently using a normal Macbook and I love it - I just think that it would be pointless for me to go buy the Air. I'm not sure if I would be able to do what I do now on it with as much ease. And I'm willing to bet that waiting a while before buying one is the best move one could make. There will undoubtably be some very nice updates and changes to the price and features.

...

After playing around with the build to order opinions at apple.com I want to look into Solid State Hard Drives some more. They sound really interesting, especially when it costs 999 dollars for a 69gb one. They better be as good as people say they are.

OLPC project update

Today I had a meeting about the project. Right now there are three of us and we've got a nice final plan to work off of. Its basically an edited version of the one I posted up last time. So as of now, my teammate and I have two or so weeks to get most of the major pages out of the way. I have to focus on guides for the RSS reader, browser, developer console, quick setup, and the different computer views.
In the end what we are looking to have is a basic resource where people (techies and non-techies alike) can go to and read on how to get the OLPC fully working. We have a lot of ideas swimming around, so now the only issue is to catch them and put them to work.

Look forward to me posting my drafts and other ideas up here in the next two weeks (providing that I don't forget).

Japanese grammar book - chapters 1-4 questions and answers

Many times I said that I wanted to start writing more in my target languages but I did not really know how. But I realized that at the end of every chapter are a set of questions, thus i started to answer them. The questions themselves don't mean much to me but its the practice I'm after. These most likely have some problems within them, but it serves its purpose.

chapter one
しつもん：
１。アリさんはマレーシアの学生ですか？
２。マナさんもマレーシア人ですか？
３。マリアさんは先生ですか、学生ですか？
４。山本(やまもと）先生は女の先生ですか、男の先生ですか？
５。山本先生は英語の先生ですか？
６。アリさんのレコードは日本のレコードですか？

１。はい、アリさんはマレーシアの学生です。
２。いいえ、マナさんはマレーシア人ではありません。タイだ。
３。マリアさんは学生です。先生じゃない。
４。山本先生は男です。
５。いや、山本先生は英語の先生じゃない。彼が日本語先生だ。
６。いいえ、日本ではありません。マレーシアのレコードです。

chapter two
しつもん：
１。鈴木（すずき）先生の部屋はどんな部屋ですか？
２。食堂の食券はいくらですか？
３。大きいパンは四十（よんじゅう）円ですか？
４。日本の牛乳（ぎゅうにゅう）は高いですか？
５。病院は高いですか、低い（ひくい）ですか？
６。病院はどんな病院ですか？

１。鈴木先生の部屋は小さいです。大きくない。
２。白い食券は十円です。そして、赤い食券は百円です。
３。いいえ、大きいパンは六十円です。小さいパンが四十円です。
４。いいえ、全然（ぜんぜん）高くない。安いです。
５。病院は高いです。低くない。
６。病院は新しいと大きいです。
chapter three
１。マリアさんの部屋にどんな部屋ですか？
２。山田（やまだ）さんマリアさんの部屋で何を飲みましたか？
３。寮の食堂は何時に始まります（はじまります）か？
４。マリアさんは日曜日にどこで食事をしますか？
５。マリアさんたちは先週の土曜日に何をしましたか？
６。マナさんはパーティーで何をしましたか？
７。パーティーは何時ごろ終わりましたか？

１。小さい部屋です。大きくないです。
２。マリアさんの部屋で、山田さんはコーヒーを飲みました。
３。六時に始まりました。
４。日曜日にマリアさんはレストランで食事をします。
５。マリアたちは先週の土曜日にパーティーをしました。
６。マナさんはパーティーでピアノを弾きました（ひきました）。
７。パーティーは十時ごろ終わりました。
chapter four
１。五月（ごがつ）五日（いつか）は何（なん）の日ですか？
２。マナさんと　さとうさんは五月五日にどこへ行きましたか？
３。新宿（しんじゅく）の公園で何をしましたか？
４。マナさんはどこの国の留学生（りゅうがくせい）ですか？
５。マナさんはいつ日本へ来ましたか？
６。マナさんはいま（今）何才ですか？
７。マナさんと日本人の女の人の子供は同じ年ですか？

１。子供の日です。
２。マナさんと　さとうさんは公園へ行きました。
３。マナさんと　さとうさんは写真（しゃしん）をとりました。
４。マナさん、タイの留学生です。
５。今年の四月に、来ました。
６。今、マナさんは十八才（じゅうはっさい）。
７。はい、マナと日本人の女の人の子供は同じ（おなじ）年です。

An interesting school issue

At my school, there are some issues being shed to light. Things seems to be falling apart. If you would remember an earlier post about the 9th graders and how I hate them, please understand that I am not the only one who does. They recently made one of their teachers quit. She did not even reach the end of the term with them. She just up and left. And now, the staff is scrambling to find a replacement. And of course, the search is not going well.
In addition to this, the school is in a frenzy over the existence of a camera on the fourth floor. There are some students who feel that is wrong for them to be watching us but I disagree. I have no problem, whatsoever, with being watched. In fact I welcome it. I see that the school's quality is dropping and I am not the only one who sees this. The majority of people who I've spoken to feel the same way. The one thing that was a problem was that we were not warned about it. And I understand that however, when you take into account the reason why it was even put up on in the first place its obvious why we were not told before it was placed. It was in response to claims of sexual harassment from girls in the 9th or 10th grade. More evidence as to why I have problems with them. And as wrong as it may seem for me to say this, in the back of my head I can't help but think that some of the incidents were possibly provoked by the girls in the first place. Of course that is no excuse for the behavior, but when you make your bed you must lay in it as well.
This up coming Wednesday is when the school will come to a decision about the cameras. I'm pretty sure of what it will be. Things have gotten out of control and now its time to fix it. Nevertheless, may I suggest beginning to kick out kids that we know are problems. I would like to avoid any collapse in my school's social structure until after I graduate.

Tentative list of college choices

As of today I now have a list of 18 potential colleges to apply to. I checked with my guidance consular and the list seems to be a good one to start with. Its broken down into three categories: Safety, Best-fit, and Reach. The names should be pretty much self-explanatory but just in case, they refer to schools I should be able to get into with little to no problems, schools that fit me at my current academic standing, and schools that are a bit above so said level, respectively. Now while I've already began to look into the courses and other things offered at each school, I feel that I need to increase the amount of focus and effort I put into it. Because of that I started to use a website my friend of mine showed me called students review. I'm interested in seeing what other people liked or don't like in the schools I'm looking at to see if I can get a fuller picture of what I'm putting myself into. It makes no sense to blindly set myself up for something that I won't like. I think for the next two weeks or so my aim for this will be to cut down the list a bit so I can keep track of myself a bit more. I'm thinking about posting my thoughts here about each school to see if anyone has their own two cents to add...

New Year's Day

So Happy New Year's everyone. I wish everyone a safe and prosperous 2008. I can't wait to see what it is that I'll be able to accomplish this year. And seeing as how this is the year of my 17th birthday, which by the way is almost just around the corner, I have a feeling this year shall be very important.

In my last post I only listed half(or just simply one) of my resolution(s). Because of this, I suppose that I should put in down, in whole, here.

Part One: Write, write, listen, and all around be in contact with my target languages.
Part Two: Prep for college. This incorporates many things like more writing, more reading, keeping up with my work and tasks, etc.

I know somehow that this year shall be one that really matters. And I can't afford to play around and mess up. I look forward to all of this with open arms, ready to do what I have to.

Once again, have a good 2008 everyone!