Acres of Diamonds

Acres of Diamonds by Russell H. Conwell, is a book about wealth, essentially. This book tells several stories that are all tied to the same overall concept that Russell H. Conwell is trying to convey to the reader. The stories are all about different people that all find themselves in similar situations only to meet the same fate to get so close to riches, then leave without thought and without riches. There was a story where a man wanted to go with his brother in order to look for oil. (which was really precious and valuable ) His brother told him that he couldn't because the man knew nothing about the oil industry. The man so eager to get rich that once he studied everything there was to know on the oil industry he went to his brother that the learned everything. They wasted no time in leaving and looking for oil that the man sold his house and property as quick as possible. Now that the new owner of the land came in he noticed that near the stream of water there was another stream of something black and sticky. It turned out to be oil, The man who everything about the oil business did no know there was oil ring in his backyard. The main message that the author is trying to convey is that you don't need to go somewhere else in order to gain riches, you have a higher chance of getting rich with something in you own backyard or neighborhood.

Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Lord of the Flies is a book about a group of boys from about age 6 to age 12 end up crashing on a deserted island, with no adults around to help them, they have to survive and function  as civil people until they were rescued or die trying. Quickly the main character Ralph becomes chief of the group of boys because he called all of them using a conch shell which become a symbol of order and civilization.
This book is considered a classic, I can understand this because of its message. The real human nature and other messages integrated in the book. The book was interesting and easy to read. Despite all that, I will never say that I liked this book. This book is a book that in my belief was aiming to please mature audiences like high schoolers. In as an eighth grader I understand the concepts that are portrayed in this book, and as a piece of literature it is really good. The problem arises with me being an eighth grader, I understand the book completely, the only thing is that I really don't care. I don't care for the message that William Golding is trying to teach me so even though it's a classic, I don't like it.

public speaking

I never like to get up in front of a large crowd and speak, especially when its for an assignment of something similar. I am never interested in the topics whenever I have to present to my class. If I had to present to my class I found that there is something that makes me a little bit more confident in public speaking. Usually the more you know about your topic the more you can talk about it. The one thing that I am afraid of happening is that someone with ask something relating to my topic and I will be left speechless, mainly due to the fact that Im afraid of giving the wrong information, so knowing the material is an important factor to having confidence to publicly speak. You also need to structure what you are going to say in a certain order so that it make most intellectual sense to the audience. Something that I find helps with what you are going to say is actually practice your words to not only solidify your points but it also helps with clear speech and having pauses to exaggerate a point. If you don't like to say things aloud then just formulate roughly what you are going to say so that you are not stuck there trying to remember what was next or how you should sound during the presentation.

realization

Have you ever looked at yourself and wondered "what could I do everyday to make myself a better person?" no? yeah me neither. What I have thought about is why do I do things that are not gonna help he in the future instead of doing what I should, like homework, or doing extra practice for math or english to advance my learning. Even though I know thats what I should do, I always watch youtube. I got to thinking, maybe it has to do with our habits, what I mean by this is, if I have nothing to do I instantly reach for my phone, the remote, or my laptop. This is mainly because I have made it a habit to check my phone. Now the real question os if I can rewrite this into something good. If habits are developed in your mind, can you concentrate enough to stop a habit. I've recently got a chance to hear a lecture from my friends dad. He tried to teach us the value of self evaluation and how if you reflect on what you did well and what you could improve on you will become successful. I recognize my friend's dad's intelligence and wisdom and when I listened to his life lesson it struck a chord with me. At that moment acknowledged  I am not ready for the responsibilities of becoming an adult, far from it. That was my realization.

procrastinator

Everyone accuses me of being a procrastinator. I can see that this is true because I am just starting to do a project due by Friday, you might be wondering, " what's so wrong with that, you still have the week days to do it since its Tuesday" Yeah thats true but everyone is already done with it. ( by everyone I mean my classmates) since it's due by the end of the week I have to really hustle to get that done. I would call myself lazy, mainly because I like to stay inside and watch tv most of the time. I procrastinated so much that now its Thursday and now I have to finish the project by tomorrow. Some might say that all you need to do is apply yourself so that you can get stuff done. Thats true but I just can't do that, If I know that I have some time to do something I will subconsciously choose to do it later. I am a really reliable person but I finish things at the last minute, I would stay up to 5 am just to finish a small paragraph rather than not do it.  Yesterday (Wednesday) I had to finish a whole article that I had about two weeks to do it and guess what... I finished it all in one night... the night before it was due. Although I finished it pretty fast it came out pretty good despite the lack of time I did it in. I feel like I can get things done better if under a short time limit. I get the sense of pressure to actually start working and though its not a good way to do things it at least works for the time left of school cause summer for me is in less than 10 school days.

Messy

      I'm a messy person, my room is far from clean. I almost never make my bed. I don't know why people would make their bed just to mess it up again. I would understand if you have company over often or something of that nature. Me on the other hand, I don't invite people over that much. If it's become so dirty that its crusty or something like that then you should totally clean it. I just don't like making my bed. If you are going to argue about why, its because I find it to be a waste of time. You might say, " What happens if you have unexpected visitors?" well I'll just let them know thats its messy before I let them in. If they don't mind it then well ... problem solved! That's what I do with my friends and they don't really care about it. When I see someone's clean room, I wonder what they do to keep it clean. I can't determine what they do. Do they clean it everyday? Or is it more like once a week thing?  I'm a very messy person, not only in my room but in my mind. There are a lot of random thoughts that just float around in my mind until I forget it. sometimes though, my mind is totally blank. Most guys can relate, and I don't know if girls can't do this or if they just don't like it but most guys I know (and me) have the spectacular ability to look at something and not think about anything. Nothing at all is happening in our heads, but then a someone comes a long and they ask, "What are you thinking about?" and we answer truthfully and say, "um... nothing." most guys know what I'm talking about and can relate but I don't know about girls. If any female could comment below to educate me it would be greatly appreciated.

super powers, what would you choose?

Powers, something I believe that almost everyone has thought about at one point in their entire life may it be flight, invisibility, the ability to not feel pain, or even telekinesis. The reason I bring this topic up is because I have been watching an anime called "Boku no hero academia" It's about a kid named Izuku Midoriya, he is a boy born without powers were 80 percent of people on earth do have some kind of quirk/power. The number one hero and Izuku's model in life is Allmight, a super hero with an amazing quirk of incredible power. Allmight passes on his power to Izuku because he sees something in him, something all heros require. Then you follow Izuku on his path to become the number one hero ever. I would love to have super powers but the trouble is picking the right one. I've thought that maybe I should have the phenomenal ability to copy whoever power by touching them, but then what happens if there aren't any superheroes around or you are the only one in the world to even have a power so you would never get to know. These are the things I think about before going to sleep. If you haven't seen "Baku no hero academia" I would highly recommend it, after the first episode I've been hooked, it has become my favorite anime so far. If I had to choose a power it would be Izuku's. I really urge you to watch not only the first season but the second as it is still being created.

the life of...

      Obsessed, A girl sees a boy and there's a spark. The girl watches him grow successful over the years, while she can only watch in admiration. The girl sees him each and every single day. She can see his radiant smile, his beautiful eyes, and his great personality. She supports him in what he does and is happy that he does it. He is the only thing that can make her smile when she is down. Getting to see him is the thing she looks forward to each day. When he doesn't show up, she has to wait until the next day. It's hard for her because everyone judges her due to her liking him, this doesn't deter her from sending him love letters though he might never get a chance to read them. He doesn't know her but she knows him, from his full name, favorite color, and his hobbies. She knows him but he doesn't know her, he doesn't know how much he means to her. He doesn't know that she devotes all of her time in mesmerization of him. Sadly that's how it ends, he will never know just how much she loves
him. and that's the life of a fangirl

Music

People say that they like a certain genre of music and they only listen to that. When I think about that I wondered why they would deprive themselves from finding some new music. Me? Well I'm different, I don't have a genre of music it more like if I like it I listen, if I don't then why bother. I've listened to today's pop music and its really fun, it's the kind of music you'd have at a party because it's something you can dance to. I listen to rock or metal, more as alternative music like breaking Benjamin or avenged sevenfold. I tend to lean over to that side of music, but I also like dubstep. I know that dubstep gets some criticism like if it was inadequate but I enjoy it. A genre of music that my friends make fun of me for liking is nightcore but I enjoy it, so much so that while I am writing this I am listening to nightcore. People don't like country, my friends look at you weirdly is you say that you like country, because they listen to rap and that's all. I don't listen to it that much but when I do it's not that bad so I don't know what the big deal is. Well that's my rant on music.

League of legends

I play league of legends ( well I'm not very good) the fist time I played I wasn't that into it, I found it uninteresting. I used to think that there was nothing other than picking a champion and battle with a team to destroy the opponents' nexus, oh boy was I wrong. There is so much more to a champion than meets the eye. I'm still in the early stages of the game as a level 12 player, but now I know that there is a lot that goes into one game. That there are different roles that each player should try at least once to find what they are most comfortable and able to play as, some examples, top, mid, bot, adc, support. So each champion has their advantages and disadvantages like things that might leave it vulnerable such as an archer, they might have a good range on enemies but don't have that much health. Tanks might have a lot of health and power but are pretty slow and are not able to chase enemies to go in for the kill. As a level 12 player I still have no idea who my main champion is, mainly because I haven't played with that many. I've played the game mode which gives you a random champion but it didn't really help, I didn't find anyone that I liked or that appealed to me.

If you would like to see what league of legends is I suggest to watch this here

Think and grow rich

      I chose to read Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill the original 1937 version. Think and grow rich has been one of the most successful books since first published in 1937 and has been remastered a number of times to have relevant examples of how to grow rich even though it is the same key principles. Napoleon Hill's "mission" I guess you can call it is to help as many people realize what truly makes a man successful and how to gain those riches yourself. In favor of his mission, he wrote this book. Napoleon has 13 key principles and during the book, it will give you instructions to follow, don't ignore them you must do exactly what he says or it will not work.
      "Whatever the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve." A quote that comes up a lot during this book. Napoleon Hill uses many examples of people that achieved success and how they did it and explains it. So Hill uses Thomas A. Edison as an example of how Edison conceived the idea of becoming a scientist even with very little education. Napoleon even uses his own son as an example because his story is incredible. Napoleon Hill had a son born without ears and doctors believed that he may never be able to hear. Hill found out that his son did have a very slight degree of hearing so Hill implanted the desire of being able to hear like any normal person in his son's head.  I cannot give you the whole story but if you read the book you can find out for yourself.

Napoleon Hill holding a copy of his book Think and Grow Rich 

Ancient Weapons

      When I had to pick a book from my school library I had trouble, I always have trouble picking out books mainly because I don't like to read. So towards the end of the library trip, I had to determine what book was the best one for me. Now I don't know what possessed me to do this but I ended up getting The Story of Ancient Weapons by Will Fowler. I just had to pick one and the title seemed interesting. 

      The book The Story of Ancient Weapons by Will Fowler was pretty good, it's just like the book says it's basically the history of weapons. There is a line in the book that says, "The use of weapons is almost as ancient as humanity" I like this quote not only because it kinda sounds cool but because it's true, in the book it shows you a timeline of weapons just to show you that weapons have existed for many hundreds of years. it isn't really a book you can spoil its just facts about ancient weapons and how people used them. 

Butterfly project

   AN EVENING IN TEREZIN
The sun goes down
and everything is silent,
only at the guard's post
are heavy footfalls heard.

That's the guard who watches his Jews
to make sure they run away from the ghetto.
or that an Aryan aunt or uncle
doesn't try to get in

Ten o'clock strikes suddenly,
and the windows of Dresden's barracks darken.
The women have a lot to talk about;
they remember their homes, and dinners they made.

Regrets

      If you were to ask me straight up if I had any regrets I would initially say no. Of course, it's not like I have never made any mistakes, I can assure you that I have made many if not tons of mistakes in the short live that I have lived so far. I have not only made mistakes but have just done things in general that are bad or that could have been dealt with in a different or better manner. I will admit that I mess up many different times at many different things and interactions but do I regret anything? Every day we fall and fail but life goes on. I used to feel regret all the time when I was a bit younger but I was sick of being sorry even though it has already passed and nothing can be done, I got sick of all the stressing and guessing what to do next. Does regreting really help? I never understood that aspect that why do we feel regret if we can't go back and fix things, shouldn't we just accept it and move on with the day? Well, that's why you won't hear me say I have any regrets. Although I wouldn't consider that I have any regrets, that doesn't mean I don't feel bad when I do something wrong or inconsiderate. Instead of feeling bad for something that I have done I see what I have done any see what I can do to fix it. If there is no possible way to right what I have done wrong then I have no choice but to live on. I don't want to regret things that I have no control over anymore so I would rather comprehend that incident as a learning experience and understand what I have done wrong and try my hardest to avoid those occurrences. Have I ever had regrets in the past? Well quite frankly, yes. I should trust my own judgment instead of listening to my friends most of the time. Sometimes I would listen to what my friends say and do things that I would otherwise not attempt. I won't go into detail at all really. Some say that they would like to go back and change things, I have been asked this but I reply no because I know that I would like to make a small mistake regarding listening to my friends now while they are still not that bad rather than in the future when it could make a huge impact on my life in the future.

Nazi propaganda

      I chose to analyze a piece of nazi propaganda that depicts a skeleton on top of the world and is engulfed in fire, on the globe, there is a star of David and inside of that star is the communist symbol. On this piece of propaganda, it says, "Bolshevism without mask" by Bolshevism I believe it means Jewish Bolshevism because it is an anti-semitic and anti-communist canard which alleges that the were at the origin of the Russian Revolution and held the primary power among Bolsheviks. This poster tries to describe Jewish Bolshevism as an evil soulless skeleton that burns the world as a kind of fire from hell, this is to make people believe that Jewish Bolshevism is evil and to make people who are jewish feel vulnerable.

Bolshevism without mask

If I could spend a day with a famous person

      If I could spend a day with anyone famous person it would have to be with Srinivasa Ramanujan. If you are interested in numbers and mathematics and know who Srinivasa Ramanujan is then you probably know the number 1729 and what it refers to, but for those who don't know who Srinivasa Ramanujan is let me give you a little bit of background knowledge on who this man is. Srinivasa Ramanujan was an Indian mathematician and autodidact, so he had no teacher and he had no training in pure mathematics. Ramanujan would always develop his mathematical research when he was alone, soon it became obvious that he had skills in mathematics and he began a partnership with the English mathematician G. H. Hardy. Ramanujan was truly a genius and now has the nickname "The Man Who Knew Infinity" The work he did was truly innovative at the time that nearly all of his work back then have now been proven correct. The meaning behind of 1729 is pretty interesting, G. H. Hardy said, "I remember once going to see him when he was ill at Putney. I had ridden in taxi cab number 1729 and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. "No", he replied, "it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways."The two different ways are 1729 =1³ + 12³ = 9³ + 10³. I would want to spend a day with Srinivasa Ramanujan and ask if he could teach me or at least give me the smallest bit of understanding of how he has discovered so many different mathematical equations.

Srinivasa Ramanujan

movie adaptation on Srinivasa Ramanujan's genius
called "The Man Who Know Infinity" 

If you want to learn more about Srinivasa Ramanujan because there is a lot more that I didn't talk about

1729 more in depth

my kind of happiness

My kind of happiness comes when:

I feel the cold side of the pillow in the middle of the night

I wake up a few seconds before the alarm clock

seeing the sun's warm rise that fills you up in the morning

You're watching TV and your favorite show comes on 

you find something in common with someone new

you have no homework and the day is free

walking in the gentle rain feeling the droplets on your face 

feeling the wind while riding your bike 

spending time with friends and family 

you open a can of coke and hear the crisp pop sound 

taking a refreshing shower in the morning 

you see the thousands of stars in the beautiful night sky 

you go to sleep when it's pouring outside 

you're watching a burning flame that gives off light

your phone doesn't die at 24%

Perseverance

There was a video that I saw in class, it was about a man named Nick, he had no limbs but he gave a speech to children about preserving. I saw that he had integrity cause he was honest and had strong moral principles. He had self confidence and believed that he could still do things with no limbs. He is also very humble and doesn't say anything about not having limb, he said that he never says oh I wish I had arms or oh I wish I had legs. Even I have never had the physical limitations that Nick had I  always thought that I wasn't a fast runner but now that I stated running am I'm more fit I feel good about my self and even now, my friends tell me that I'm pretty fast.

Budweiser Super Bowl commercial 2017

      Budweiser has made an ad for the Super Bowl. The story of an immigrant, Budweiser claims that it's about the American dream. It's about the real-life story of company co-founder Adolphus Busch who journeyed from his native Germany to America in 1857 to brew beer. The ad emphasizes and dramatizes Busch's journey as he makes his way to St. Louis where he meets his eventual business partner Eberhard Anheuser. On his way to St. Louis, he is hated upon being told that he is not wanted and is told to go back home.
      Once Busch gets to St. Louis, he is treated to a beer by Anheuser which is the only act of kindness he has received in this powerful 60-second commercial. Busch then graciously thanked Anheuser and then they exchange names and the rest is history. Since this is the story of an immigrant some believe that it is political but Budweiser says otherwise. Anheuser-Busch (the manufacturer of Budweiser) says, "We believe beer should be bipartisan, and did not set out to create a piece of political commentary; however we recognize that you can't reference the American Dream today without being part of the conversation."

Adolphus Busch when he gets to St. Louis

Worst argument

      I almost never get into arguments but the worst argument that I've ever been in was when I got into a fight with one of my best friends, I won't say his name so let's call him Daniel and let's call his girlfriend Ruby, of course, these are not their real names but just so I don't have to go through the trouble of saying he, she and them. Ok, so I'm friends with both Daniel and Ruby, I have been friends with Ruby a long time before Daniel asked her out and they got together but we didn't talk all the time but we did talk pretty often. Since I always hung out with Daniel I go to spend more time with Ruby. after awhile I found myself really close to Ruby, I felt like we had bonded and grew closer as friends, Daniel comprehended it as something else.
      The Oktoberfest came around and our whole friend group got together to have fun, I came with Ruby because I was just around her house so we go to Oktoberfest and we wait for the rest of the group to come. Everyone gets there but Daniel won't talk to me and he doesn't for the whole night until I get home. He accuses me of trying to steal his girl, from then on it's a pretty personal and heated argument, at the end of our argument I do something that I will forever regret, Daniel even pleaded me not to but I was too hot headed to listen. What I did is something I don't want to reveal because of how bad I feel about it, maybe in the future, I will come back and write what I did but for now, I'll keep that to myself.

fake it 'till you become it

      There was a ted talk that was about changing your mind by changing your body. Let me elaborate, people say that your mind can change your body like if you just got a confidence boost you will hold your head high, or if you get really embarrassed you might curl up. This ted talk was about that maybe if you change your stance it will affect your mind, and it actually works if you take a certain stance you'll have more confidence and energy. You might think that you are faking who you are but it's fake it till you become it pretend to have confidence till you actually have confidence and just take the stance for like two minutes if your nervous or really stressed.
      Once you have confidence in yourself you will feel like a totally different person, you will be more enthusiastic and will become more of a risk taker. This was discovered by studying the body language of people with confidence and those with out. those who lack confidence were more reserved and concealed while people with confidence were open and enthusiastic so if your mind controls your body why can't it work the other way around?

link to ted talk

Favorite quote

      My favorite quote is, "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve." who was from Napolean Hill who is mostly known for his book "Think and Grow Rich". The reason this is my favorite quote is because it says that anything is achievable if you believe in it. This quote could be taken that something can only be achieved if you believe you can in the first place. Since anything that I can conceive and believe I can achieve, this makes me believe that any goal or dream I have is attainable and not something that is improbable and unlikely to happen, this quote sort of makes me believe that anything is, in fact, possible and allows this quote to be possible and so that is why I find this quote to be my favorite.