The Seven Samurai

This movie is 3 hours long! We started watching it 2 days ago and watched an hour everyday or a little more because we only have 45 minutes left. Its supposed to be one of the greatest movies ever made. It is really weird though. There is this one guy who is really happy and excited when the bandits come and he is always joking and its weird. He is always mocking other peasants too and he can be very annoying. The other samurai are usually strict and calm. The samurai agreed to help the peasants for no reward or rank except they get fed by the peasants. The movie is black and white and in Japanese but there are subtitles for English. So far it is pretty interesting. The movie was re-made a lot. There are 2 famous Hollywood re-makes. The re-makes are in a modern time though. I don't know of any in Japanese. What I mean by modern is that the people are western like the horse-back riding kind of people, and they have guns and all that but the story line is pretty much the same. I haven't seen any of them but the one I know of is called the Magnificent Seven. So if you feel up to watching a 3 hour movie, the Seven Samurai should be your choice.

Influences

Every once and a while, my dad or mom tell me that the people I hang out with influence and/or dictate what I will do and who I am. Now as I kid, I wouldn't believe that, thinking I could just hang out with whoever I want and that maybe I can influence them. So I wanted to test that. At school, my friends were knuckle heads and I might have slightly slipped toward that, but not fully, noting my grades were all A's and B's. Mostly B's though and I am kind of disappointed in myself, but I have been hanging around a lot this summer with my friend that likes to read a lot. So I was thinking that he might influence me to read and I appeared to be right. I usually read 10 pages a day which is definitely not an acceptable amount to me, just because I am lazy, but this kid wants to read all the time usually. So we went to meet friends near our town library and they weren't there yet so since I had to return two books, I thought and he thought why don't we read until they get hear. And instead that day, I read 20-30 pages. It was great. We both had been carrying around our books. So I influenced him to read and another instance in which I might have influenced him was to workout since I do that a lot. I influenced him to work out with me in the wight room and do laps in the pool instead of just messing around in the pool. It worked more in the weight room instead though. We both did a lot of ab exercises and some biceps and we also went on the bike for a half an hour. I think he liked the bike because when we were done, he said "already?". We had already done a half an hour. So I don't know if you can see the influencing instances in action shown in the examples of this post, but I just thought that the influential effect people have on each other is pretty interesting and a pretty big deal.

Summer Work

My summer work that I have to do for AP History, English Honors, and Spanish 2, is working out much better than I expected. I planned out the days that I would do the work each week and stuck to it and realized I didn't exactly have to do that, as long as I did the the work planned out for each day, in a day. Also, I realized that getting ahead is great. I have been getting ahead which definitely frees up my schedule for extra time in the days and extra days to do what I want. I like finishing my Spanish and AP hist. on Mondays. The AP Hist. takes the longest and the Spanish takes up the least amount of time. English doesn't really take that long at all but I actually think the Spanish stuff is getting longer with each chapter, not that much longer, but they add a little more material to read in each page with each chapter as I have begun to see. Last Saturday, a book called "The World That Trade Created" finally came. I'm supposed to read it for History. Its super boring and the chapters are kind of long. I don't think it takes me so much time to read, but it seems like forever when I'm reading it. I also surprisingly don't feel as relieved to be done with it for the week as anything else. On my summer assignment sheet, the directions for the book says you have to consider it and then it has a list of things to consider, and I still don't know what he means, but as I read the book, I make mental notes on what might be important. I'm pretty sure we aren't going to take a test on it, but I still make notes that I might think would be on a test. Sometimes like dates and countries but all that is hard to note and remember because the book talks about so many regions and trading items and revolutions and dates all at the same time. The book is divided into chapters and in those chapters are little sections so that helps a little with reading it. Overall though, I think the summer work is going pretty well.

YMCA

My friend's father signed me up for a YMCA membership so I could go swimming with the and workout with my friend there to even though I already have a 24 hr gym membership, I guess it would just be better for my friend to not have to spend so much money on a gym membership while we could just swim at the YMCA. Well, I went with my friend to swim 3 times and tried to work out with him today but he didn't bring shoes so I had to work out there alone but I guess I didn't mind so much because when I got to the pool, we just did laps. We also ran to the YMCA and back to his house. Swimming laps is really tiring but works out every muscle in your body. At least I'm pretty sure I heard that somewhere. We actually got kicked out of the pool the first time we went because my friends dad was yelling at us. He was only telling us how much time we had left to stay at the pool. It seemed like he was telling us to get out of his lane because my friend kept accidentally shooting the little body board into his lane. But it was time to go anyway. Today was fun though.

Borderlands

My friend spent the night at my house yesterday and he brought over Borderlands because I told him I wanted to see what it was like. So I played it with my brother on co-op mode and I found it really fun even though it is like a cartoon game, its really really fun. You start out picking which player you want, the hunter, berserker, soldier, or the girl, but I forgot what she is called. I started out with the Berserker but I didn't really like him so when I started over with my friend, I played as a soldier and I really like him. My friend picked the hunter. When you get to level five, you get to have a special power. You have to complete missions throughout the game and the first boss is a bandit named 9 toes. It says he has three balls as well. Whenever they introduce new people, they make it seem really cool. The planet you play on is called Pandora and the story line says you are looking for a vault with new alien technology and whoever finds it will have unlimited power but the planet is very savage and there are monsters that try to kill you called Scags and there are also bandits all over the place. You can buy guns and ammo and health kits and shields and when you kill something, they usually drop ammo and sometimes health vials to get some health back. If your lucky, they even drop guns. In the machines you can sell them if they aren't as strong as your other guns and you can set the guns you want to use and every level you gain after level five, you get a skill point. Its a really fun FPS and my friend let me borrow it so I cant wait to play again.

Skype

I got a Skype yesterday and more of my friends have one than I expected. Ever since I got it though, I've constantly been video chatting. My friend has the same web cam as me. I did take this one from my dad though because he never uses it and I wanted one. Its a good web cam too. The microphone on it is great and the picture is fine too and you can mess around with the picture of it. You can make yourself have huge eyes or small head or clip art glasses and there is even a face detector so it had a lot of properties. They are funny looking too. Whenever I'm not using it though, I turn it away from myself so other people can't see it on their hacked websites. Sometimes people can put an invisible screen on a button or something that can activate your web cam so they know what you are doing. Its just ridiculous, but technology has definitely gotten that advanced. I don't know how to group video chat but I don't think you can. You can group chat though. You can also play games, which I haven't tested yet but I will sometime probably. Anyway, Skype is fun and can keep you in touch with your friends over the summer.

Spanish course

My dad finally signed me up for the Spanish course! I thought it was going to be easy and just pass by like nothing. But it was much much much easier than I thought! So easy. Most of it was stuff I had already learned. It was way too easy of course I only did the first chapter in the course. In the speed back assignment, which is worth 10% of the final grade for the course, I got 100%! Nothing wrong and everything right. It was so awesome and I'm glad because that's definitely an easy way to lighten my load for sophomore year and if it is this easy continuously, then it shouldn't make much of a dent in my workload for the summer. The history work is the one making a major dent. But the Spanish course should just whoosh by. I thinking about finishing it all next week. In the speed back assignments, they even let you refer back to the course to look for answers. I only did that to check a couple of my answers though. I can't wait to not have to worry about the course when its all done!

The Falling Death

I just came across this story I wrote for English Class and I thought I might share it. Its a really long story so be prepared. Hopefully it will suck you into reading it. Enjoy.

The Falling Death

Have you ever had a dream where you fall off something really high and then when you're about to hit the ground, you wake up? Well I used to have dreams like that continuously over periods of days and it was crazy but then it all stopped. But now things have changed. Now there have been reports of death for no known reason and there is no one to explain it. Only tests have been run on all parts of the victims' bodies.

Many ordinary citizens have been found dead in their beds bleeding from different places. Some have been found with crooked feet, when before they went to bed, they didn't have crooked feet. Some have been found bleeding from the head, feet, chest, and even holes through their body. Some scientists suggest it might be from a serial killer, but when they look at the victims' brain cells, they find completely different things. They find it to come from their dreams. Some of the victims' therapists say that the victim has complained of continuous nightmares for unknown reasons.

Now scientists have been asking for volunteers of people who have been having nightmares to give them permission to put a night vision video camera in their room as they sleep. At first you would think, "Well why would anyone want to do that?" Well there have actually been a surprising amount of volunteers. The scientists have asked the patients to report to them every day about their dreams. Most say that they see a man dressed in all black with a hood on a hill. Others say they are at a distance but want to find out about the man.

The people who had the dream where the hooded man is the closest to them die. The scientists all look at their screen because an alarm goes off when someone dies. They play the video back and in the video they see a man dressed in a black jacket with a hood on with his hands out waving over the person who has now died. The scientists call the police and send them straight to that person's house and as fast as they can go. When the police get there, the man is gone. Nowhere to be seen.

FBI agents are sent out to find the man. Government spies keep a lookout for the person. The next day their alarm goes off again, but this time the man in black looks at the video camera and puts his hand in front of it. You couldn't see his eyes. The police retrieve the dead man and it looks as if he has drowned. So now a person is dying every day.

Until one day, a man wakes up in the middle of the dream shaking and he sees the man in black trying to kill him in his dream. The survivor chases the man but he is too fast. The police surround the house now because the scientists have been looking on their cameras the whole time and right when they saw the man, they called the police. The man in black looks at all of his surroundings. He runs straight for the police and they try to grab him but when they touch him they scream with pain and agony and the man gets away.

The police explain that the man was so cold that it burned. The survivor explains what happened in his dream. He says the man tried to push him off the hill and succeeded, but right before he hit the ground he woke up. He said it was extremely scary. The scientists now know how the other people died and they are having the same dream of the man on the same exact hill. They were pushed off the hill and when they hit the ground, BAM!, they are dead and bleeding. No one can explain how this can be, but only that it is very scary.

The survivor now is set on killing the man who tried to kill him in his dream, and in real life at the same time. That night he pretends to go to sleep. He lays on a gun while police are hiding on his roof and all around his house waiting for the man to come. The man in black is smart. He goes on the roof and silently kills the police by covering the police officer's mouth and then sticking his hand in their back so hard that it goes through them because of how cold his deathly touch is. He goes around doing this to all the policemen but then he finds himself at gunpoint by the survivor.

This is the moment where everything has stopped for the surviving man and the killer. The survivor is sweating and shaking. The man in black is just standing there, staring. The survivor speaks, "Take off your hood so I can see your face."

The man in black says, "No, I don't have a face."

"TAKE YOUR HOOD OFF!" the survivor yells.

"No," the man in black replies plainly.

The survivor, with his rifle pointed at the man, aims for his stomach and then shoots. The man in black puts his hand out and the bullet stops at his hand and freezes, and then crumbles as he grinds the bullet softly in his hand. The man in black is now laughing and then unexpectedly strides for the survivor and hits him and he is now down on his back with his rifle at his chest. The man in black says "What a nice way to die, you're like one of those army men who are buried in their coffin with his rifle at his chest." The man in black now grabs the survivors shoulders and he is screaming in pain from the cold burning.

The man in black says, "Yes, yes, you like that?" almost at a yell. The survivor is now just yelling and yelling and then, BANG!, he hears a startling shot.

The man in black now falls on top of the surviving man and he squirms and shakes free of the black hooded man on the ground. The survivor turns around and sees a scientist shaking with a police gun.

The survivor says, "I don't know how I can thank you for saving me, I mean I owe you my life and my family's life if I had one."

The scientist replies, "Well you don't have to thank me, I think I just saved my own life too and millions of others. I guess that means they all owe me their life."

"Where did you shoot him?"

"In the back of the head."

"Well the bullet came through his face and plopped nicely onto my stomach, but it was all cold and crumbled when it landed."

"I think the only vulnerable place on his body is his face."

"Well it worked and that's all that matters and thank God."

"You should take off his hood and see what his face looks like."

"Good idea." The survivor takes off his hood and then stumbles back and yells in fright "OH MY GOD!", "He wasn't lying, he really doesn't have a face, just red glowing eyes to see, but then how was he talking?" He then sees that his mouth is low on his chin but there is no nose.

The scientist says "Lets get him over to my car and take him to the lab to study him."

So they do and at the lab they cut him open and find out that he has no organs except for a heart with glowing veins going out through his body and into his hands and fingertips. Then there is a very high pitched screech from the cut open man and everyone in the room with the man falls and dies. No one could ever understand why what happened happened except that it was a tragedy hopefully never to come again.

Sophomore Schedule

My crazy schedule for sophomore year is AP World History, Honors 10 English, Algebra 2/trigonometry, CP Biology, and PE for all year classes. For 1 semester I have Computer Programming 3/Karel J Robot(just programming a virtual robot to move and pickup up stuff on the screen) and for the 2nd semester Web Design. To lighten my load for that year, I am taking Spanish 2 over the summer. AP world and Honors Eng. have summer assignments. For AP world I have to read 9 chapters in the text book, write about the people, places, and inquiry and study questions in the workbook. I also have to read a book about world trade and then read a book for extra credit and take a test on it when I go back to school! For Honors Eng. I have to read the Iliad and identify the characters, Gods, Places, and I think the time periods as well. I also have to make Cornell notes which are just 2 columned notes. I start all that Monday. I also have to do the online Spanish class. So much to do. I really hope I have so spare time on the weekend! Hopefully. I just need to be organized and not procrastinate. Its going to be a tough year!

My sister's Birthday

Today was my sister's birthday and also the last day of school. All I pretty much did was stay in computer programming class and play Counter Strike the whole time though. So that's covered. My mom picked me up and we went to Target, Costco, and Vons for my sister's birthday. I got her a little car with candy in it. She liked it. Of course. She was actually asking me for it too. So I'm glad I found out what to get her instead of having to make a decision because I am just terrible at that. My sister got a ton of presents. She got some from my Grandma, me, mom , and dad. Apparently my brother didn't get anything for her. Too bad he didn't. I don't think he had any money. I'm sure my sister stole it anyway(laughs). We made carrot cake and it was super good. Definitely better then the red velvet cake we had last time which i didn't eat. My dad got her a new freaking violin with the case! It was pretty nice even though I play the piano, it looked pretty nice. I think it is bigger than her old one. At least I'm pretty sure that that's what my dad said to my mom. Great day.

Final Exams

We just call them finals and I had no thought of a different name for finals except: finals. Until my English teacher called them final exams and I was thinking, oh, OK, that's what they're really called. I never really cared though. Anyway, I just finished all my finals today. Monday, there weren't any finals. I had Geometry(51 question test) and Spanish 1(120 question test) finals Tuesday. Science(150 question test) and P.E.(record blood pressure, BMI(Body Mass Index), resting heart rate, height, and weight) Wednesday. And finally English(100 question test) and Programming 1(just a final project that I finished a week before) Thursday. Each class was 2 hours long. During the test, I wished I had more time, but when i finished the test, I'm thinking, UH lets get outta here! My Geometry final took me into the 30 minute passing period and that was the first final I took, so that's what probably made a little paranoid about the rest of the finals. I was OK for the rest of them though. In between periods, there was a lotta yearbook signing. I have a crap load signatures. Some people wrote some weird stuff. I still have more people to sign it. I might have to attach a paper to it because there is not too much space left. Anyway I really hope I did well on the the finals.

For The Win

I don't remember if i blogged about this yet, but i applied to get a new book that hadn't come out yet by Cory Doctorow who wrote Little Brother which i really loved. The application that i emailed him said that i had to promise to blog about the book which i would do anyway and give him the info he needed to send the book and i was kind of worried because i never got an email back. Last week, my dad picked me up from school and he had a orange-colored package, the regular kinds, and it had bubble wrap in it as usual and i was thinking, what in the world could this be. I had been pretty sure that i wasn't getting the book by then and then i open it, and i am surprised to see that he did send me the book! For free! It hadn't even been published then or out for sale or anything! I was so happy about getting the book because i knew it was going to be good. It even said on the bottom of the front cover of the book, UNCORRECTED ADVANCE READING COPY-NOT FOR SALE. That is just awesome! I have it in paperback too which i always thought was better than hardcover because its more transportable then hardcover but hardcover lasts longer. I am expected a few mistakes in grammar or punctuation, but its the tale the book tells that matters. My dad took it and flipped through the pages and saw that the formatting of the words on the pages all together were a little crooked going down and it does that more with every page and i say AWESOME! I started reading it today and i already like it. I like how he explains the details of everything vividly. It helps to picture the story. I can't wait to finish and read the whole book and then like i promised, blog about it! Its out for sale on hardcover on amazon at this address:

http://www.amazon.com/Win-Cory-Doctorow/dp/0765322161

Check it out!