The Greatest Songs You Have Never Heard Of!!

Sorry for how long it is!!
p.s. notice we didn't edit out what we said we would :)

LOVE YOU ALL!!
meg & anna

NEW THOUGHTS FOR THE NEW SEASONS

Hi guys,
Many of us in this season are travelling somewhere or having a good time, cherishing the moments with our families and friends. Within our own happy Kodak moments, we sometimes forget to think about those families who are homeless or underprivalidged during this time of year. The time of Christmas is special for everyone because it creates a harmonious environment. It is important for us to not only help them, but also thank God for our wonderful families and for our wonderful lives. Try to make it a goal to do something nice for others this time of the season. You could help someone, give a gift to a poor family or help in your own special creative way. It's a very nice feeling and a great thing to do, not only this time of the year but all the time.



Write down some of your goals or things you have done to help.

Traveling

Hey everyone,
I'm actually in Boston right now! And I just had the best pizza in the whole world. Not even kidding.
But since we have "open blogging," I figured I'd just post something now instead of feeling guilty all throughout break about ignoring anything to do with school.
My family doesn't usually travel for Christmas--if we do go somewhere, it's usually right after Christmas (last year we went skiing over New Year's.) But this year, my parents decided to go visit family in Boston. My dad said it was "necessary" and that it was "our turn to go." On my dad's side, my grandparents, great-grandparents, three aunts and three uncles live here in Boston. I don't really like the idea of not being home for Christmas, but I think it'll be okay.
Another downside of this whole away-for-Christmas thing is the spreading out of presents. I like to get all my presents on Christmas morning. This year, I'll get a couple on Christmas morning, more when we come home, and more on New Year's. I'm not sure how happy I am about this.
So, do you guys think it's good to travel on Christmas? Do you usually? If not, do you wish you did?
See you all January 5th, and Merry Christmas/Happy Hanukkah.

First Academy vlog!

Quotebooks. Because when people say something embarrassing, you want to remember it. =)

Snow Day

Just thought that doing a quick post on the snow day would be good.

How did you guys figure out it was a snow day? I heard about it from friends who have facebooks and stuff.

How did you guys spend your snowday? I spent mine sledding and just hanging out with friends. Sledding is a lot of fun when you don't snowboard down the hill and have your friends push you and watch you fall on your face...cough... taylor, lindsay... cough.

Hope you guys all have a good winter break!

Great expectations... but little to come?

Throughout the entire day, both students and teachers were buzzing around on excitement [espresso :)]. Not only are the holidays and winter break just around the corner, but there has been an underlying anticipation for, you guessed it, the snow day. Don't deny it-- you know you've considered how awesome it would be to start break a day early: no last-minute tests, no homework, and absolutely no teachers. Just you and your pillow together at last. However, reasoning comes over you and tells you that there most likely won't be a snow day and that you shouldn't get your hopes up.

But that's exactly it: you shouldn't get your hopes up. Why? Because you know that if it turns out that we don't have a snow day you'll be royally ticked off. And if you keep your hopes low, let's just say you won't be a happy camper. Is it just human nature to create images like this to alleviate distress? Why do we constantly set up false ideas when we know that they will make us feel worse than we did in the first place? 

Now let's flip perspectives. Is it considered pessimism when you purposefully keep your expectations low so that there will be no hard feelings? Based on my own experiences I have learned to keep my expectations low to prevent myself from totally losing it (which I can't say that I haven't done already). What is your opinion? Do you keep your expectations high or low?Do you think it determines whether a person is optimistic or pessimistic?

College Football

Over the past weeks there has been a lot of talk about college football. Whether it be about things like trophy winners, or great games, or fantastic teams, to players shooting themselves in the leg, the conversation is really stirring up the town. In the next view weeks the football season will come to an end with a series of bowl games. This system is very unique and is completely original to College football. The system consists of vast number of bowl games, (games played once between two teams and the winner receives the trophy), that take place all over the country. These games can range from the Holiday Bowl, to the PapaJohns.com Bowl. All the bowls are of relatively equal importance with the exception of the BCS Bowls. The BCS Bowls consist of the Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Rose Bowl, and the BCS National Championship. These bowls are the coveted prize in college football especially the National Championship. Each year the contenders for each bowl are different. Every year, with the exception of the National championship that automatically picks the top two ranked teams, each bowl choses which teams play in their bowl. Usually it is the most prestigious bowls, like the BCS bowls, that pick their teams first. After each game has been decided the games are played on various days between december and early January. The last bowl game to be played is always the national championship. With a new game every day between two great teams, causes for major excitement and entertainment in my life.

Although I have to admit that the end of the season is the best part of college football I also like watching football during the regular season. Even during the regular season there are still some great games. Being a Notre Dame fan I go to many of there games. If you have ever been to a game you would know what I am talking about. The crowd is always lively and yelling (especially the student section) the bands are playing, the cheerleaders cheer leading, the place is filled with noise. This makes for an exciting and enjoyable game even if your team doesn't really stand a chance. Even if you don't care much for football, watching a game with your family or friends is a great way to spend an afternoon.

By the way here's the final plays of the 2007 Fiesta Bowl. It was one of the best and excitng games I have seen.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoZJxi3A0VQ&feature=related
Have you ever been to game? What was it like?

Have you ever seen a game you ever have really enjoyed?

Are there some other sports that you enjoy watching?

A Strictly Hypothetical Scenario...

Many of you, if not most, have seen my doodles of personified inanimate objects. The first in line was a little tangerine with a contagious smile.

Upon its great approval by my fellow classmates (:D) I created similar creations. These included a pear, tomato, kiwi, orange, mango, and coconut (kokonawt). But I went further, I drew an angry bucket, a Slurpee cup with brain-freeze, and an ecstatic rice bowl. I plan to continue this trend, but meanwhile, it set me thinking: What If we lived in a world, where everything was personified, where every object had the capabilities of emotion and thought?! Now under this assumption, a number of things would occur:

• You would no longer have any privacy. People would just have to get used to trusting the telephone booth not to look while you quickly change into a superhero outfit and fly off to save the world..
• Different "things" would have different ranges of emotion based on their stereotypical niche. In other words, a rock, which to most people, [with the exception of geologist, who themselves can be very boring] would consequently have a boring personality. This, in turn, would serve as a basis for some social stratification.
• The common expression "sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me" will have a somewhat new meaning..
• Rocks, in addition to being boring, can also be excessively violent.
• Transportation vehicles (i.e cars, buses, planes) would no longer need drivers. This can be good or bad. If your car is a bad driver, and has frequent road rage, you MIGHT just want to get another car.

Then the question occurs; would buying and selling be acceptable? Wouldn't owning possessions be a form of slavery, if those possessions were living? This would not last very long, because an army of sticks, stones, cellphones, computers, and just about everything else could overpower the human population that owns them. Hence, arguably the most significant difference would be that we would either have no concept of possession WHATSOEVER, (contrary to hunter gatherer people who still possess tools and various items), or all possession would be mutual. Personally I think that the latter is more likely, because mutual possession exists even in our current world. One could say, "she/he's mine" or "I'm yours" or even on candy hearts when it says BE MINE. This context applies mainly to relationships in our society. However, because most people wouldn't be looking for a relationship with a stapler, there would be a different form of mutual possession. Just like the common example found in popular media with one being able to say "That's my dog, Fido" and the dog being able to say "That's my human, John."

Another thing to point out is that currently factories create products, which would grant the humans the control over the population size of many objects, a power that could easily be abused. Just as easily, those objects could start manufacturing either themselves, or other objects withing physical ability. What I mean by this, is that a computer could draw the plans for a small toy, a laser could melt down the plastic, which would re-solidify in a mold. Thus the computer, laser, and mold would have power of the small plastic toy population.

In summary, although this hypothetical universe would seem cool, amazing, and frungapolous, there would be unethical amounts of undying social stratification. I don't know what all of you would learn from this, but I learned that I should stick to my doodles and hope that my pencil doesn't mind.

I Speak For Most, If Not All, Or At Least Some, But Definitely Me: A Manifesto

I must confess - I am not particularly interested in the falling of leaves upon northerly nations or the ethereal qualities of snowflakes or even the nighttime activities of our dear St. Nicholas. As such this post will consist of none of those, nor Johnny Depp, but a little in-house political activism. Let's address ACADEMY PET PEEVES.

THE NING

Why do we hate the Ning?

Well, it's fundamentally a monstrous, counter-intuitive Gordian knot of a redundancy. Going to the 'Benefits of the Ning' discussion (Go to the homepage, click Glenbrook Academy Freshmen, scroll down, click View All in discussions, try to find it on the first page, fail, try to find it on the second, 'succeed', click), we find such benefits as:

"Posting and discussing for homework!"
"Its nice to have a resource base open to me 24/7."
"In times of confusion, I have something to turn to for clarification."

(As well as the nicely post-ironic "I think integrating technology with education is GOLD." and the rather obvious "The Ning is a good backup for me.")

So: the Ning is a place to find homework, discuss homework, and complain about homework. The problem is:

It doesn't work.

* It's a sprawling, bloated mess of a Facebook ripoff. (On paper, this thing must have looked wonderful - full-featured, free, distinct from the social complexities of Facebook, but you didn't try setting thirty people loose on this thing beforehand.)

* It's hard to navigate - see parenthetical small-text statement above.

* It's badly designed from an aesthetic standpoint.

* It has a confusingly convergent feature set - discussion vs comment wall?

* It offends us whenever we get a homework clarification (in the form of a discussion?) at seven after checking the Ning at six-thirty.

* The redundancy aspect isn't inherently bad, but it is poorly executed. When we get a Greek Mania worksheet in-class but have to start discussions on the Ning and a couple of days later get our partner quiz entirely on the Ning and are confused about its content because it was barely mentioned in class, it just makes your students more disillusioned with the site than they already are. (Sorry, Mr. Williams, you're not the problem - you're just caught in the maelstrom.)

* The 'Freshman Academy HW' discussion is probably the most important thing on the Ning. Yet teachers often circumvent it for larger assignments, it's often used for proclamations other than straight assignments, and it's irregularly updated. Confusion.

* EVERYTHING WE DO IS IN THE GROUP 'GLENBROOK ACADEMY FRESHMEN'. Why do we have to take that extra step whenever we go on the website? Futhermore, constraining everything to one group robs us of functionality - hence the discussions instead of Greek Mania Group A. We almost never communicate with upperclassmen, and when we do it's for social reasons that can be covered dans Facebook - the one time it was necessary, TED, we created a Google Site and overrode the Ning for a few weeks. How about an 'Academy Freshmen' Ning site, at the very least? (I'm going to disregard the redundancy in the title - if we're on the Ning, we're most certainly in the Academy.)

*It lacks chat, so if you want to get something done right away you have to go elsewhere regardless of personal feelings towards the site.

*It went down for 4+ hours Tuesday, and it'll do it again.

* The communication tools it provides are already offered, in a better way, elsewhere. Without the Ning, we'd all IM and use email for projects - sure, it's not strictly a school-only format, but we use them anyway and they work better.

And on and on and on.

The Ning has its benefits, to be sure - most were listed before the rant began. Let's not throw the baby out with the proverbial bathwater. (I flatter myself, of course, by suggesting anything will be thrown out at all.) So instead of making quiet, snide remarks on the Comment Wall, a plan:

1. Give more power to our Gmails. They form the basis of all we do scholastically, be it providing a log-in for the Wikispaces and Blogger or trading info in-class or on the go. These little @-signs are more powerful than the Ning could ever hope to be.

2. Either find a MIRACULOUSLY PERFECT alternative site or streamline by finding a more pure information-dissemination tool. Assignments are always printouts - so put up a final-word PDF on a cleaner, more simplistic website. That's all we need. Really. Enable comments if absolutely necessary but otherwise rely on students emailing teachers with questions (the old-fashioned way). Bonus - that's less work for you.

3. Why did we all have to use Blogger for our personal blogs? Google Reader can subscribe to anything with RSS or Atom enabled - limiting us to Blogger just makes us more resentful when it lacks a feature (for example, I got pretty frustrated a couple paragraphs ago when I couldn't double-indent my lists and eventually had to rely on asterisks). Give us more electronic freedom - this stuff is really tangential to actual coursework anyway.

4. Give us all our assignments in class. No exceptions. If you want to give us a link online, fine, but tell us it's going to be there. As a rule: we don't like surprises.

5. Get total teacher support. Mr. Field needs to be on board with this too - I don't care if we have an entire section of the website entirely en francais, it's insane to have all these one-stop sources for homework floating around. It's a testament to the impotency of the Ning that a teacher needs to set up an entirely different site to put up vocab, calendars, and some widgets. (Actually, though, Mr. Field's site is the most functional of all our resources - a template, perhaps.)

6. And while we're on Mr. Field, he's hit upon something marvelous - sharing homework assignments as public Google Docs. It's worth noting that despite our inability to comment on or discuss French homework on-site, we've never had any questions about it. If you're more explicit in the beginning you'll have less trouble later.

Little of this will happen this year, and certainly no fundamental change will occur until the next freshman class enters. But, hey, we are the largest test group you've got. Let us help decide what'll be best for the class of 2013.

(If I've misrepresented anyone's opinions, tell me in the comments. Tell me why I'm wrong. Tell me why I'm right. Tell me what we should do instead. We'll change the post - heck, we could even make a discussion on the Ning - how ironic. This should be an ongoing discussion with professorial input.)

Obsessed with Leaves...

Okay, I know, I forgot. So to make up for it I will post about... leaves. Over the past few years I've been to Canada quite a few times (all for hockey of course.) The last time I went there was this Halloween. For some reason, a few things dawned on me that trip. I'm not quite sure why I never realized these things about our great neighbor to the north before but... I didn't.

First of all, there's the money. Although extremely exciting because there's people playing hockey on the back, it looks quite alot like monopoly money. The lettering/numbering, the colors, and the shininess. Also, why does a country that has had independence from England for **not too sure how long, but a while** still have their queen on it's money? Yes, I know it's part of the Commonwealth, but if you fought so hard to get rid of your imperial power why give them that satisfaction of having one of them staring up at you every time you hand the cashier a bill. Furthermore, the fact that they would want to be part of the Commonwealth at all just astounds me. Do they think that it protects them in some way? I don't know... Now, not to mislead you, they do have some of their former "Prime Ministers" and such on the currency but the queen is on some of it. Which just begs me to ask the question, when she dies does everyone have to print new money? And how does that work?

Next, is the accents. This last time, I was in Windsor, Ontario, which is literally Candadian Detroit. It's right across the narrow river. So basically, its like Detroit but worse because the drinking age is only nineteen <-- a whole different subject of ranting. Anyway, when you cross into Canada a strange thing starts happening, everyone begins to talk funny. It's still English, but it's weird. In Social Studies we've learned about "proximety transmission." So, its just seems weird that people who live closer than you and me have totally 99% different accents/speaking styles/ect. I mean, nobody in Detroit talks like a Canadian, and nobody in Windsor talks like an American. How did this happen? No clue..

Last, is the leaves. The strange obsession Canada has with the red, maple leaf. So, yes it is their national symbol thingy, but, no joke, it's everywhere. Everything they have has one of those little devils on it. Honestly, there was a leaf painted on the swing seats at a playground... You know the McDonald's arches? In the middle of every single one there was a little leaf, like that makes them so much different than American McDonald's. If they hate us so much and want so badly to not be "American" why have McDonald's in the first place? Make your own! Why not? Well, because they can't. Now look, I don't hate Canada, and I'm definetly not a patriotic person at all. After high school I plan on zipping right over to Europe for college and quite possibly the rest of my life, but I just found it infuriating. If you're going to be "Un-American" be it. But please ask yourself before you build something, are we going to have to stick a little red, maple leaf somewhere to distinguish this from the American kind? Because if you are, you're a hypocrit .

Emotional Intelligence

In seventh grade we had a topic involving emotional intelligence. For some reason, I found this topic very interesting, yet hard to understand at the same time. What exactly is emotional intelligence? Can one achieve perfect emotional intelligence?

I concluded that emotional intelligence is made up of several aspects. First of all, knowing yourself is important. Knowing yourself is how far you think you can push yourself, and who you believe you are through your own eyes. Accepting yourself is next. Just being okay with who you are and knowing your capabilities.

Another aspect of emotional intelligence that I found interesting was how you communicate with others. Communication is what makes the world go round, at least in my mind. By communication, I of course do not mean texting or emailing someone. Face to face conversation, calling someone, or showing them through your actions I believe is communication. Facial expressions are signs of communication. Communicating with others can also mean sharing your opinion or thoughts with others. Telling them how you feel, and what caused you to feel that way is what I think communicating is also.

Cooperation with others also involves communicating. During class we had a discussion over whether a society could be run without talking. How can one cooperate with his/her peers if they can't convey their ideas in the best possible way(preferably verbally)?

Another form of emotional intelligence is connecting with others. I think that connecting with others is when you can relate to other people and their problems. It is a time when you can understand what they are going through and try to help them get through it. If you can't connect with others, how are others supposed to connect with you? What are the effects of not being able to connect to others? Any other ideas of aspects of emotional intelligence?

Without emotional intellingence, our ideas would not be conveyed very well. We would be using powerpoints all of the time instead of speeches. Is there anything really inspiring about powerpoints, to a certain degree? One can possess immence intellingence, but without the emotional intelligence to portray that intelligence I think it is near worthless.
(sorry for the late post guys!)

Santa Claus

Okay, in light of the holiday season and all, I figured I'd post something on Santa. I just got home from this "Santa Day Brunch" at the Glenview Club, so I've been thinking a lot about Santa. At this lunch I went to, you took a picture with Santa and ate lunch.

I did some background research on Santa, and here's some stuff I found on Wikipedia. Santa came from a real person called Saint Nicholas of Myra. I won't go into the whole story now, but you can look it up here if you'd like. There are a couple names people use for Santa: they include Santa Claus, Father Christmas, St. Nicholas, and Kris Kringle. Most people imagine him to look like a fat, jolly man in a red suit with black mittens and boots, with a Santa hat. He uses his eight reindeer plus Rudolph to deliver toys to all the good girls and boys all over the world on Christmas Eve, and coal to the naughty children.

There are several views on Santa: I was brought up to believe in Santa; most little kids do. Some critics think it is bad for parents to lie to their children. Others think it detracts from the religious part of Christmas, and others think it is just a sign of how commercialized Christmas has become. 

By the time kids are in, say, 6th or 7th grade, they start to question the existence of Santa. (I really hope I'm not bursting any bubbles right here.) I don't have any personal horror stories; I pretty much figured it out for myself. Some kids find out from their friends and some kids' parents break it to them gently. My parents didn't--for all I know, they still think I believe. 

I don't know, though: after I stopped believing in Santa, Christmas just kind of dimmed for me. It was a lot more fun to write letters, to stay up late and then pretend that you heard sleigh bells on the roof to make your brother jealous, to leave Santa cookies and then wake up and gasp at the half-eaten cookies and the note in your mom's disguised handwriting....I guess it just lost something.

My questions for you guys are: Did you believe in Santa when you were little? How did you find out he wasn't real? What are your views on Santa and his influence on little kids?

the Future!

Ok well I think today is my say, but I am going to post anyways! Vicki your post was very interesting. It kind of reminded me of an article I read awhile back. It was about scientists' predictions about what our society and technology will be like in the future. (50 years is what I think it was) Some of the technology they predicted there would be are self-driving cars, computers everywhere (even paper thin monitors to put in your pockets!), lots of wireless technology, robots, and other things. They also thought that there would be nano-materials in clothing and furniture that immediately clean up stains, holographic gourmet chefs to guide you while cooking, printers that could print 3 dimensional items, and smart clothes that allow you to change outfits without actually undressing. In relating to health, they predicted that people would be able to live up to 200 years old! Some of these things seem completely unreasonable and others may be within reason. I wonder how scientist could come up with these ideas.

Also, another thing that was part of this article was what people in the 1950's thought we would have today. It was predicted that today we would have waterproof furniture indoors, computers used to communicate, shop, and get the news, the idea of being able to take a pill instead of eating, flying cars, and personal jet-packs. While some of their predictions may have came true, most of them did not. This makes me wonder whether our predictions now are very reliable or not. When I first read this article a few years ago, it made me really excited to see what we would have in our future, but now I realize that we probably won't have all of this. Although a lot of these predictions would be really cool, I think that most of them are probably not going to come true. :(

Magazines

Reading Meghana's post about memory reminded me of an article I read last year that discussed memory. The article asked why nobody can remember what happened to them as a baby. Its explanation was that, in order to store long-term memories, you need to have learned to talk. So long-term memory begins at the same time that speech does.
The article was in Muse, a magazine published by Cricket that covers a very wide range of subjects. The dozens of articles I've read since I first subscribed to Muse have included lightning strikes, political cartoons, chess, catapults, and the Brooklyn Bridge. The magazine also includes columns about surprising uses of math and science--from the knots that form in cords and loose string to the design of a paper bag.
I've been reading Muse for a few years now, and while I've lost interest in a few of the other magazines I used to read, I still enjoy reading Muse because the articles--whatever their subject--are consistently interesting and thought-provoking. I have learned things from the magazine that I never would have found anywhere else. Every issue has something new and surprising, and I always look forward to the next Muse.
What about everybody else? What are the best magazines that you have read? What makes these magazines so great? Would you recommend them to other people in the Academy?

Remember This.

Something that has been explained to me numerous times is how we remember things. I think it's pretty cool, so I figured I'd pass it on to you all. Now, I may not be able to tell you the year Alexander the Great was born, but I can sure tell you the year Johnny Depp was born [1963, if you were wondering]. When there's something you've heard once, it gets stored in your short-term memory, and if you never think about it again, you will soon forget it. But, if there's something you hear once, and again, and again, somewhere in your frontal lobe, your hippocampus takes that fact or memory and stores it in your long-term memory. Think about if you can rattle off your first phone number. The same thing applies. If I told you the numbers 823-6235 and asked you to tell me what they are next week, odds are you couldn't remember. But through repetition, you remember phone numbers. 

This all is fine and dandy, but why do you care? Well, knowing this, you can apply it to yourself. When you're studying for a test, repetition helps you to remember what you're trying to do. It also is known that when you sleep is when that marvelous little hippocampus transfers memory to long-term. It also replays the day's memories, storing them where they should go. Which tells you all night cram sessions are NOT the best idea. 

The brain is insanely complicated, and I don't pretend to understand it at all. But, with some cleverly worded Google searches [by which of course I mean typing "memory" into the search box] , I learned just a little bit about memory. Very cool stuff. 

Hope I posted on the right date! 

Also, hit me up about some random facts. I'm FULL of them. Yay, hippocampus!