The Tournament!

Welcome back everyone to another blog entry and we will open up with one of my current sports. Whether you consider a sport or not were talking about the world of Debate. Lately within School my debate team has been working hard to help set up one of the best tournaments within the Missouri area and in order to do this I had to go and collect judges, contribute to setup, and finally help out for the rest of the weekend in some way. These ways of helping could include helping monitor pods, Keep track of ballots, or help time rounds. I ended up not getting a job like hall monitor so I ended up timing different events such as Lincoln Douglas debate which is mostly philosophical debates, and Foreign Extemporaneous which is doing a persuasive speech with only 30 minutes of prep time prior to the speech. While these are fun to sit through eventually these things begin to wear on you after looking at the same walls for about 8 hours for two days in a row and listen as the arguments seem to blend together you just want to go home and relax.

I manged to get one of the new people to my household to help judge in a few different rounds. His name is Manny. Lately he has just moved in to live with the family for a while. Now personally I don't know him as well as I could since he is a fairly quiet person. Despite sharing a room with him at the moment he is quiet and usually keeps to himself. I won't go too much into detail about him because I have just met him and what I do know is for him to share if he ever wishes. I haven't really gotten much of his personality yet since I don't see him often enough and for this reason I won't start laying judgment or compliments on his character yet and he has turned out to be really nice so far.

Before I wrap this up I have to address Thanksgiving at least a little bit so why not my favorite foods. After all this is usually what people associate with Thanksgiving. Personally I love turkey as much as the next person but the sides are where all of the deliciousness lies. Lets start with the most basic food of all. The bread. Whether this be a fluffy roll or maybe just some slices of white bread the rest of the meal is not complete without this simple addition to the table. For me personally there needs to be some sort of potato such as mashed potatoes or maybe some potatoes Au gratin. There really isn't a limit here on the potato dishes. Finally there is that oh so beloved cranberry sauce that looks like dog food when it comes out of that can. There is something strangely alluring to me about this odd looking substance. It is sweet and has a strange gelatinous texture that you really can't get anywhere else except for with jello. If anything, this is probably my guilty pleasure as far as anything canned or packaged. All of these answers can vary by person so you don't have to agree with me on these foods, but for me dinner just isn't complete without these staples.

Autumn's Fall

Welcome back everyone to another blog entry. Lately things have been changing rapidly. For example there is the recent change in temperature. Within the last few days the temperature here in Missouri has dropped drastically, and I absolutely love it. The signs of the first winter are here, and it has almost completely bypassed Fall. This constant cycle of the seasons has made way for my absolute favorite season known as Winter. There is nothing like the bitter chill outside to bring everyone inside huddling under their blankets and relax as the twinkling crystals of ice glisten in the sky as the crystals softly provide for the earth, its' own blanket made of a bright white.


Another one of the changes comes from school revolving around Debate. A personal favorite class of mine due to how simple and difficult this class can be all at once. We now have a new resolution for debate, and this one is going to be pretty fun for me. The new resolution is "Resolved: To be 'forgotten from the Internet' ought to be a civil right." The really cool thing about this resolution is that the entire case is focused around Google. One of my personal favorite companies on the internet at the moment. I'm so excited about this project that I have a massive document of accumulated facts just waiting to be cobbled together into a working case.


Within all of the changes occurring at the moment it is hard to remember the amazing holiday that lies in wait around the corner. Thanksgiving, My absolute favorite holiday. As I have mentioned last year as well, many of the other holidays don't mean half as much as they should to me. Halloween feels tacked on, and simply there for just candy, Christmas feels more like just the act of giving and receiving gifts over the old values that it's supposed to have, and New Years just doesn't have the right levity for me. Thanksgiving can be seen as just another holiday to start stuffing yourself silly on turkey or whatever meal tickles your fancy, but it is one of the few holidays throughout the years that can guarantee me time to sit down with my family. To reminisce on the years before. The people that sit around you will stay within your memories for years to come as you give a proper thanks to times you've had, have, and will have.

Time Doesn't Fly!

One of the few words that I could ever consider to be my favorite would be the worde time. Time is something so mysterious yet it was a measurement created by man. All of the great truths in the world usually have some kind of flaw. The speed of light is not a constant, and if you cut the earth in half and make the two pieces drift apart the earth loses the gravity we have become so accostomed too. I can't lie that it's facts like this that drives me crazy sometime. Few constants exist that are reliable and the thought of them can chill one to the bone. Did you know that there is a virus that attaches to other illnesses to make them incurable? Dieing of the common cold would just be a sad way to go. Coincidences in of themselves leave you fearing for your life. Stories of people dropping dead in some strange way like a man hit by the same taxi that killed his brother and both dieing at the same age on the same moped. Something to chew on eh?

Happy early Halloween! Don't you love a good thought provoking story? I know I do and I find that facts among all other things are just the easiest way to bring that chill down your spine. Some people get it through bungee jumping or skydiving, but for the mostly sane we stick with our stories. I gave a nice misleading title to my story so that people would read the title and think it was another average post.  The second factor to making it work was the idea that surprise would help. Surprises are shocking and jarring. If you didn't know what you were walking into it would come as that much more terrifying. Honestly I hoped you all enjoyed the little distraction from the mediocre. After all surprises lye around every corner and it would be a shame to miss out on all of them.

Speaking of mediocre I think it's about time to get on track for the first time today. Lately I have been working hard on increasing my skill in French in order to have an easier time with getting my grades up and keeping them there. In order to do this I have taken up working on the side on a website known as Duolingo. I quickly saw improvements in my writing and speaking of French immediately. I don't like handing out praise to locations so quickly, but even my dad has been using it and it's helping him brush up in the hazy areas of the beautiful French language. If your ever looking into increasing your linguistic skills or to learn a new language I would recommend it personally.

"Put it in The Stack Over There"

To be honest with everyone out there I am super busy lately. I'm working my hardest to do all of my work right and it's starting to get to me. As I've mentioned before this is the first year that I've really had to work hard to be able to keep my grades up. A little bit more bragging on my part but it's true and it's starting to get to me. I'm making mistakes here and there its starting to ware on me. I've missed a couple assignments and then I'm trying to keep things together at home and I just need to keep going, but more than anything at the moment I need a break from it all.

On a more lighthearted note I'm working on writing a story for my English class. The story needs to be horror which sadly isn't my strong suit,but more than anything that is because I feel that horror just isn't the same anymore. I mean a good jump scare still gets the same feeling of terror across but that chill down your spine just isn't the same. For crying out loud, list a single movie, game, or book made recently that gives you the same kind of thrill from horror that you might get from one of the older forms of media. That would be my own opinion of course but I would love to hear your guyses opinion on the subject.

I remember ages ago stating things like I intend to get my name out on the social networks at some point. The funny thing about that is that now I'm using things like google plus a lot more often and I personally enjoy just looking at some of the interesting things you might find. A good laugh every once in a while to lighten the mood. Because of me going around Google plus I seem to be getting a few more views every once in a while. I think my activity alone is just getting people interested in the other things that I might post or do which is interesting to think on. Still I do get the word out a little bit more about my blog and who knows, maybe my blog could pick up someday.

Falling into place

The weather, oh the wonderful weather. It's finally becoming Autumn again and it means for me that I'm getting closer to one of my favorite times of the year, winter. Autumn has it's perks though like the beautiful changing of the leaves and the true beginning of the school year. After all, school doesn't really begin until sometime after the first quarter of the year is up. That is when the teachers come at you full tilt because by this point in the year they know for a fact how to approach the class.

Speaking of class, I have a new class. I have taken a huge liking to debate starting primarily with the recent tournament that I have attended. I decided to go into Lincoln Douglas debate and did an awesome job and came back with 3 victories and only one loss. After my previous records I was absolutely astounded to see a complete turnaround. Originally I was pretty terrible with my cases but now they have turned out awesome. I was so close to getting to the outrounds but I was off by one win to even be recognized on stage for an award, but you know, I don't think it could have gone much better.

Last thing on my list for the day is my complete lack of focus for the moment. The reason for this is just the long weekend. It has left me throughout the day, completely unfocused to the point where during math class I almost tuned out the teacher entirely and it took all of my willpower to stay on track. Even at the moment I struggle to complete my blog because of the urge to just fall into my gaming or read my book at the moment. In all, a lot of has happened over the last few days.

Second Language

I love the idea of being able to speak a second language that I can then use at a later point. This second language of choice for me is French as I have explained many times on my blog before. Only recently though have I truly been able to get the mechanics of the French sentences down. I'm only getting started but I finally have been able to learn some more of the basics. Stuff like Je parle Francais assez bien, is simple but so much fun to say. I've even got my dad going through French again and it has just been a learning experience between the two of us.

Speaking of French, my class is starting a fund raiser for the foreign language department in my school. This definitely won't be that hard. I have about 2 get all donations and then turn them into my teacher. We are selling cookies and magazines if that makes any sense. The first thought that came to mind though is of all things a bank. I don't know if banks would buy from a student looking to fundraise for their school but wouldn't that be the jackpot for this assignment? I mean just think about it real quick. You tell them that they can buy entire buckets of cookie dough fairly cheap and then you sell them a subscription to several newspaper for all of that waiting time that the bankee has. Just a thought.

I'm on a foreign language roll at the moment so lets not end it now. In order to keep my language skills up I do other things on the side that aren't too horrible. The music that I listen to at the moment usually consists of French lyrics. I also go and read some French articles every once in a while to help myself  get to a higher level of understanding of the French language. Simple stuff like this helps every little lesson that you do on a day to day basis sink in a little deeper. A little bit of immersion leads to a higher comprehension of everything you study of another language or culture. 

I love Science!

How many of you out there go and read up on some of the current events of the moment. I personally read up on it at every chance I have and because of this I want share some of the really cool things I found today. Definitely nothing like my last 2 entries which got me up to 300 posts, but I have to say I think you will enjoy some of the new things I have found.

More than anything one of the big themes of today in the tech world is the synthetic squid skin. Sounds extremely comfortable, I know. I can't wait to order it either. The primary idea behind this product though is not for comfort but it is one of the first forms of camouflage that we have at the moment. It is controlled through certain electrical currents which activate changes in texture and color. Perfect for all of those people who want to hide in a public setting.... I take that back. There is little to no way to hide in a public setting. In fact the instant you start changing colors people are going to look at you in some strange ways. You can check this one out here

Keeping on the theme of stuff with tentacles they now have a soft robotic arm. Amazing stuff really. It fills up with air and bends with the environment along with a few subtle tweaks in order to grab things. Of course eventually they intend to get this to work so that it could even pick up people which might be kinda scary. With the way things are going in robotics at the moment I wouldn't be surprised if they could do it either. After all we also have robotic cheetahs that can move faster than cheetahs. If you want to check out the robot tentacle I personally liked this link.

I'm thinking of doing stuff like this article hunting a little bit more often. Still It might be about time to start changing the name of my blog. Maybe even make a second one instead and try to keep this one dedicated to school work. It could work after all and then build off of that. I could even attempt to make a website that would allow you to get to all of the different locations. Awfully ambitious, and I'm known to not follow through with things, so we'll see how this goes.