It's Just Rocket Science

Stardate:  2013.144

                Rockets and Space Shuttles and things like that have always interested me. To get more involved with these things, I took Physics. Recently, we started learning all about Space Exploration and Dark Matter and other really interesting things like Quarks and Neutrinos. We also started to build our rockets, which are set to be launched sometime soon.

                 A model rocket kit comes with a body, a nose cone, fins, an engine tube, a shock cord, a parachute, and a few other things. They’re relatively simple to assemble, though some parts can be confusing. All you really need to do to assemble the rocket is follow the directions and add glue where you’re supposed to, so it’s really not hard for anyone to do, but supervision is recommended.

Stardate: 2013.154          

We also had to design a “Mission Patch” and name our rocket, like the NASA astronauts used to do. My group named our rocket the “Vortex 17”, and our mission patch has the Gallifreyan symbol for Vortex and the number 17 on it. Gallifreyan is a language from the hit British TV Show, Doctor Who.

                The launching process will be somewhat orderly. Groups will pick a number out of a hat and that is the order in which the rockets will be launched. Launch will take place on the soccer or football field. After launch, when the rockets reach a certain height, the parachute will deploy and the rocket will land somewhere close to where we are, hopefully. Many times the rockets have not been recovered due to them being lost in the woods or somewhere else where the students cannot reach them.

               

Stardate: 2013.168

Well it turns out we didn’t launch them. There’s less than two days of school left so it looks like our rockets won’t be making it to the Final Frontier after all. It’s kind of disappointing; the whole class was really looking forward to it. It looks like we’ll have to wait to boldly go where no man has gone before.

The Endings of Books

                The ends of books are something most avid readers tend to dread, especially if it’s the end of a series. Book endings range from happy to sad, from awesome to terrible, and from cliffhangers to well-rounded story endings. You could be happy with one ending, but very disappointed with another.

                There are some endings that are obvious will happen, for instance, the Harry Potter series. After so many books and years of reading leading up to the final book, it was completely obvious that Harry would kill Voldemort and save the world. There is no way an author would change an ending after so much hype. And if they did change an ending as important as that, everyone would probably hate them and boycott their books for the rest of their lives. Readers are crazy.

                A lot of people include cliffhanger endings in their list of “Pet Peeve’s”, and it’s completely understandable. Cliffhanger endings are one of the worst types of endings, especially if it’s a book that won’t have a sequel. If that’s the case, there really is no reason the ending should be a cliffhanger. If you’re book isn’t going to have a sequel and you know that, why on Earth would you make the ending a cliffhanger and risk infuriating so many people!? If the book will be continued, that’s a different story. Then all people will have to do is wait until the next book comes out, which isn’t nearly as bad.

                Good endings are expected from books. They make people happy, and you’d think that all authors would want to write good endings so their fans are pleased. Bad endings could be terribly written, cliffhangers, or just not how the reader wanted it to turn out. A popular favorite type of ending is complete surprises. People love it when authors do the unexpected and write something ridiculous. There just aren’t endings like that in the world.

                All in all, endings can be good or bad, and they can make people happy or sad. It’s all up to the author’s discretion, and to some degree the reader’s preferences. Go read a book, it’ll make you smarter.

A Review of Minecraft

Minecraft is an open world sandbox game originally created by Swedish programmer Markus Persson and later developed and published by Mojang. Minecraft has quickly become one of the most popular games in the world, and some people seem to be confused about that.

                The graphics in Minecraft are blocky, to say the least. But they literally are just blocks.

A nicely designed player home, with Pigs, Chickens, and Cows outside

Most people who don’t play the game call the graphics childish, and say they don’t understand what the point of the game is. That’s understandable because, until recently, there really hasn’t been a point. With the recent updates, the developers added a sort of ending. The player can travel to The End, a dimension that is home to the Ender Dragon. The Ender Dragon is basically the final boss of the game, because killing it will roll the credits. The game doesn’t prompt you to go to the end and kill the dragon, you can do it on your own time.

The End, and the Ender Dragon

Minecraft is unique in the fact that it is really one of the only games where you can do whatever you want, and it is a lot more fun with friends. It can currently be played on two systems, PC and Xbox 360, both of which feature online multiplayer. You can collaborate and build stuff with your friends, or you can just mess around and fight each other. Whatever you choose to do, you’ll have fun doing it.

The Importance of Senior Year

                A lot of people say that your junior year of High School is the most important, and that does make sense. However, your senior year is just as, if not more, important. You still need to focus on getting good grades so that you’ll be able to graduate and play sports and go to prom, and you also need to make your final college decision, which is arguably one of the most important choices you’ll ever have to make in your entire life.

                Junior year is when colleges look at your grades and SAT scores. That is why most people think junior year is the most important, and that is true, grade wise. Senior year is when you make the most important decisions of your life, and that’s why it is arguably more important than junior year. During senior year, you have to make two extremely big decisions: Where you’re going to college, and what you want to do for the rest of your life. These two things are most likely the two things that will have the most impact on you over your entire lifetime.

                One of the most reasonable things to do today is to attend a county college to get your Associate’s Degree, or just to go for two years to get you general education courses out of the way and then transfer to a four year school and get your Bachelor’s. Doing the latter will allow you, once you transfer, to focus on classes that only relate to your major, which is really what you want. A lot more kids are doing this because county college tuition rates are usually a lot lower than traditional four year schools, and some offer lower rates to students who live in that county.

                When asked “Why do you think senior year is so important?” Morgan Fisher, a senior at Sterling High School in Somerdale, New Jersey said “It’s when you realize who your real friends are. This is the year when you grow up and realize what you’re going to do for the rest of your life, you choose who you surround yourself with, and you also find out who you are. It’s the point in life when you get to become you.” After being asked the same question, Sean McMillan, another senior at Sterling High School, said “It’s the final year before ascending to college. You have to make critical decisions to help yourself choose your career.”

                What Morgan said really rings true. “It’s when you realize who your real friends are.” This statement is so true, it’s a little crazy. Obviously in movies they overplay this and make it a huge cliché, but it really is true. There are some people who you can be friends with for over 10 years, but when they get to high school, they make new friends and leave you in the dust, but then there are some people who you may have only known for a few years, but you can just tell that they will always be there for you, and that your friendship is going to last for the rest of your lives, and that’s a real friend.

                Friendship is a funny thing. It can either make you really happy, or it can make you upset. In the case of losing friends, which happens a lot over the course of your high school career, you’re probably going to be upset. When making new friends, however, you’re bound to be happy. 

Soft News Explication

"Against all odds, James Levine is back."

Anthony Tommasini's "With Wheelchair and Lively Baton, Levine Commands Carnegie Hall" is a soft news article about the return of conducting legend James Levine to the stage of Carnegie Hall, where he conducted the Metropolitan Orchestra. This performance was his first performance anywhere in more than two years. "The audience, which packed the house, stood almost in sync to give him a hearty welcoming ovation." Due to years of spinal and shoulder problems, and multiple operations, "it seemed very possible that Mr. Levine might never return to performing." He came out on stage in a mechanical wheel chair. After the first piece was done, he tried to turn the wheelchair around to the audience, but had some difficulties. He did manage to turn it fully around though. "Still, this little hitch suggested how unusual it is for a conductor to have to work out such mechanical matters." The rest of the night went smoothly. Mr. Levine seemed to be alright waving his arms and giving cues to the musicians, which shows how far he has come in his healing process. All in all, "Mr. Levine's return was a triumph."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/arts/music/james-levine-returns-to-the-podium-at-carnegie-hall.html?ref=arts&_r=0

Hard News Explication

Dana Ford's  "Tornadoes tear through Kansas, Oklahoma and Iowa" is a hard news article about multiple tornadoes that ripped through three different states, causing massive damage to homes and surrounding areas. The first tornado, seen southwest of Wichita, Kansas, was described as "large, violent and extremely dangerous." The second tornado was seen near Edmond, Oklahoma and "another tornado was seen outside of Luther, Oklahoma but it was not immediately clear whether that was the same twister." The third tornado touched down near Wellston, Oklahoma, "taking out power lines and damaging several homes." More tornadoes were spotted in various places, causing damage all the same. Luckily, there have been no reports of immediate deaths or injuries. According to meteorologists, "Baseball-sized hail, wind gusts and tornadoes are threatening to pummel parts of the central Plains and Midwest through Monday."

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/19/us/severe-weather/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

A Review of Halo 4

Halo 4 is a first person shooter in which the player fights to stop an alien with an incredible grudge against humanity from blowing up the Earth.. After the release of their magnificent work Halo 3 in 2007, Bungie sold the Halo franchise to Microsoft. Bungie continued to make the next two Halo games, ODST and Reach, but after their releases, Microsoft owned company 343 industries took over the development of the next game, Halo 4. 343i knew they had to please a lot of fans, since Bungie had been making the Halo games since the original Halo in 1999. The pressure was on. And they delivered.

                The campaign is unlike any Halo game so far. Not only did the iconic Master Chief, the usually silent super soldier who has saved the universe multiple times,  speak the most he has spoken in any game in the entire series, his AI companion, Cortana, who has been with him since the beginning, began her descent into Rampancy (AI Corruption), where she began to “think herself to death.” The story involved not only Master Chief blasting aliens, old and new, into the atmosphere of the new Forerunner planet Requiem, but also the emotional rollercoaster of Chief doing everything in his power to get back to Earth to find Cortana’s creator, Dr. Catherine Halsey, in hopes that her Rampancy could be reversed or cured.

                New enemies arise in the form of the mysterious Prometheans, alien robots with several varieties that force you to evaluate your entire combat strategy because of their diversities. The dog-like Crawlers swarm you and try to keep you cornered, while the Knights pick you off from a distance and then teleport for an up-close and personal kill. Be wary, because if you manage to get rid of a Knight in the midst of the chaos that combat can become, their flying companions the Watchers, can regenerate the Knights if they are not killed soon after.

                The main baddie in this installation made fans that follow the Lore and book series happy, as he is one of the most well known members of the Forerunners, the Ur-Didact. The Forerunners are an alien race almost nothing is known about. The Didact does give us some information regarding Forerunner motives and technologies which is helpful to those fans who don’t read the book series.

                Several new weapons are added, but it still doesn’t add much of a variety to the playing style available, and most people were hoping for more additions. Among the new weapons are the Forerunner Suppressor, which functions like the UNSC Assault Rifle, the Scattershot, a shotgun weapon that features ricocheting bullets which have the ability to take out several people at once, the Boltshot, which functions as a revolver unless charged, where it then produces a shotgun-like effect in shooting four bullets at once in a wide radius, and several others.

                The graphics in this game almost movie-like in quality, especially when played in HD, but even better than the graphics is the sound. The first time you pick up a gun and shoot it, the sound draws you in to the game. It makes you feel as if you’re inside the Chief’s iconic armor and you’re obliterating all those aliens. The one thing that was the most disappointing was the music. Don’t get me wrong it was still great music like any other Halo game, but the original Halo theme we all know and love so well was only played for a few seconds. You can listen to it right here, www.youtube.com/watch?v=fedR4_SXKNY, but it’s better to hear it in the game.

Like any other Halo game, the online multiplayer is fantastic. You can play against strangers, or you can play with your friends and make your own custom matches. Along with new multiplayer maps and a few new game modes, a Call of Duty-esque class system was added. You can now select what your primary and secondary weapons, grenades, and armor abilities are. It wouldn’t be a Halo game without armor customization! The ability to change around your armor types and colors remains, with a few additions in that department as well.

All in all, Halo 4 is a fantastic game, and I have very high hopes for whatever 343i puts on the market next. So if you haven’t played this yet, what are you waiting for!? Put on your armor and go save the world!