Lojban Song Time

A school "talent show" is coming up and I have determined what I want to do: a Lojban song and (possibly) dance.  I've started messing around with a synthesizer, trying to get the overall sound of the song set in my mind.  Since I only know Lojban grammar (not much vocabulary at all), I require extensive use of a jbovlaste.  It's still very difficult for me to fit the things I'm trying to say into the lines because Lojban doesn't have words like "of", "through", or "with"; those meanings are a part of the sumti.

Clinton Chess Tournament September 2013

As some may know, whenever the Prince of Peace school up in Clinton hosts one of its unrated tournaments, I go up there to (generally) dominate it.  These tournaments are held only about once every three months, so it's kind of a special occasion.  I noticed that except for two people, everyone was there because I or my family had informed them about the event; there were six players and a handful of chess-knowledgeable parents in all.  Since there were only two high school students, he and I played six games, all of which I won.  After the tournament was over and the four-player elementary section had finished all its games, I hosted the simul I usually do after these.  All players and two parents participated, all of whom I defeated.

Sprained Ankle

During gym class today, I fell sideways and rolled my ankle inwards.  It hurt a lot at the time, but once I got up it felt a lot better.  Unfortunately, after the game, the adrenaline wore off and I felt the full effect of the pain, which was a lot.  I had to jump on one foot to the medic's office, who filled out a form to have me sent home.  Soon after, it was determined that I had actually sprained my ankle.  It really didn't feel that bad, but apparently I really messed it up.  I still can't walk; I'll miss the first few periods of school tomorrow to go to get examined by a doctor.  Moral of story: If you get hurt, sit out for a little while to see if it's bad.

Learning Lojban

I noticed a reference to a constructed language called Lojban in an XKCD.  Naturally, I looked it up on the internet and found that it is a very interesting language.  Its official web site has many resources to help you learn it as well as information about the people that speak it.  The language is intended to allow a range of error with pronunciation, making it easy to use in computing.  It apparently has only 1,500 words which can be combined to produce an amazing vocabulary.  I'll be learning Lojban - how about you?

Sick Days: Not Easy

It's common knowledge that elementary school kids pretend to be sick in order to avoid school.  I've been (legitimately) sick for two school days now and I can tell you that it's not easy.  In fact, it's actually very difficult.  Since I wasn't expecting to be at home, I didn't bring home any of the textbooks.  I can't easily talk to the teachers to learn the material the class is covering.  Basically, I'm on my own pace, without necessary materials, getting work piled on each day, and unable to fully concentrate due to being sick.  Even without the mental inhibitions involved, managing myself long enough to do all the necessary work would be near impossible.  But I can always count on RinkWorks to make me laugh!

Manito-wish, Part II

Time to finish up the short bullet points of what went on in the week I was up at Manito-wish!

• Self-description.  There was a short exercise in which we moved along axes of a graph-like thing drawn on the ground to answer questions about our personalities.  I am an "analytical observer", which means I am in the quadrant that focuses on the end result and focus on the parts before the whole.  Another similar exercise placed us in various "comfort zones" for various situations.
• Answering personal questions.  One night near the end of the week, classes split off with their individual advisers to answer predefined personal questions in a circle.  My class was already very close, so we didn't open up too much more.
• High altitude elements. The last day was entirely comprised of activities going on at exceedingly elevated locations.  There was rock climbing, a "cat walk", a leap of faith off a telephone pole, and other very scary stuff.  I learned that I actually am afraid of heights.  Nevertheless, the catwalk was amazingly fun.
• Food poker at night.  The last night, the Rivermont chaperons taught everyone in the guys' cabin how to play Texas Hold'em, which we did using Ritz Bits as chips.  I did surprisingly well, staying in until there were only two people left: me and the main chaperon.  I had only 25 fewer chips (150 total), but the massive blinds combined with a terrible hand killed me.
• Canoeing on a large lake.  I had never been canoeing before, so I had some trouble, especially with the J stroke.  Thankfully, there was a Manito-wish staff member on board my vessel (which happened to be the only unnamed one) who was able to show me and my partner how to control the canoe's direction.
• Baking cake in fire.  A planning and teamwork activity had my class bake a cake using cake mix, logs, a spatula, and a bow drill.  It was also kind of a budgeting activity because we were given a fixed amount of currency to spend on extra supplies.  My roles were a bark gatherer and the bellows for the fire.  The cake tasted absolutely awful, but it was immensely satisfying to see it fully baked.
• Parodies of everyday games.  Warm-ups before actual activities had all the campers participate in variants of things like tag and rock-paper-scissors.  There was a strange version of freeze tag in which each freezable was Taylor Swift and the taggers were Kanye West.  There was a game that incorporated rock-paper-scissors as a means of "leveling up" to become various celebrities.  I guess the Manito-wish people like to add popular culture to their warm-ups.

There were probably other points of interest, but I'm having trouble remembering everything now.  All those days honestly felt like one.  There may or may not be a Part III depending on my mind's ability to recall things.

Manito-wish, Part I

Yesterday's post to Fleex's Lab was the last scheduled post for the trip my class took to Manito-wish, a leadership/outdoors camp in northern Wisconsin.  Just two hours ago, I got home off the long bus ride.  (I'm noticing that, due to a week of being away from electronics, my typing is a lot slower and less accurate than it usually is.)  In the week I was away, quite a few things went on.

• McGraw-Hill LearnSmart updated.  I now know absolutely nothing about how to use it.  Fortunately, they left a classic mode button to let me use the old style.  Tonight, I just got started on the biggest assignment so far, four days later than intended.  Catching up shouldn't be too difficult; I just need to do about triple the amount I was doing when on schedule.
• Mojang pushed the biggest snapshot in the history of Minecraft's full release stage.  Grum has stated that a massive refactor "breaks all the things".  In addition to that, huge changes to the terrain and new flowers make it feel like an entirely new game.  Guess what I'll be doing when Forge catches up!
• Apex High School Learning courses progressed according to plan.  I think there's a little bit of easy review stuff that I need to do by the end of this week, but nothing major.  Currently, I have a 126% score because of an unbalanced extra credit assignment.
• I gained a subscriber on YouTube, bringing my sub count to 21.  Unfortunately, I can't really create more videos because...
• I got sick with a viral infection, possibly strep.  My throat hurts, I'm constantly thirsty, and my voice just sounds awful.  No recording will be done by me anytime soon!

Alright, now that I've covered all the things that were not related to the camp, it's time to list things that went on up there on the outskirts of Boulder Junction.

• Group name games.  It seems every new place has to have everyone introduce himself to everyone else by throwing some sort of object around a circle.  Fortunately, Manito-wish went a little further than just names.  They had this rope-like thing that would be passed around the circle and wound for each person as he spoke about various aspects of his life.
• Amazing family-style meals.  I think eating family-style (by passing around large containers of food and shoveling it off as desired) really brings a group together.  Giving pitchers, plates, pans (receiving burn injuries while doing so), and bags to nearby people on request forces people to get outside their own little world, even at the dining table.  The food was amazing, as was the occasional dessert.
• Communication building.  There was this one game in which a "minefield" had to be navigated using at least three people in three roles.  The "rescuer" was blindfolded and could only hear and walk.  The "spotters" were mute and could only see and gesture.  The "speaker" was turned away from the "minefield" and could only see the spotters and speak.  It required some planning to create the gestures, but most of the challenge was in reaction times.  My personal favorite role is the speaker.

As this is getting longer that most posts and I need sleep to recover from the 6:30 AM to 10:30 PM awake times, this will be continued tomorrow!

Element 115 Discovered

Researchers in Switzerland recently synthesized Ununpentium, element 115 on the periodic table.  Unlike an earlier Russian application, the IUPAC accepted the findings of these researchers as a discovery.  This is the first odd-numbered unnamed element to be successfully synthesized, but I'm not sure if that's significant.  You can read more about this in a Forbes article.