The Real End of the School Year

Here it is: the real end of the full school year. Today, I attended and ushered at the seniors' commencement, the ceremony of which also included some school and department awards.

In my understanding, a school award is something that the entire, well, school considers while a department award is fully determined by people inside the department it deals with. School awards are more than just mastery of whatever field they are mostly related to; they require application of that knowledge to improve the moral climate of the institution.

Now, two days ago, there was the promotion ceremony, at which one technology award was presented. It did not go to me, as it was specifically marked to go to a junior. (The IT director tried to give it to me anyway, but that's another (very hilarious) story.) I did not know there were other awards, but in fact there were two more presented today. The first one was a school award, the Dr. Michael A. Novello Technology Award, named after a former head of the school. This was for "leadership in integration of technology", which I probably served by helping teachers set up things and fix information security issues. The second, which I was not expecting to receive at all, was the Computer Science department award, which is simply to recognize excellence in the CS field.

Holding both certificates and the plaque newly engraved with my name

Holding both certificates, with 100% more IT director

Congratulations to the graduates!

Learning Advanced Skills with Recursive Research

I recently determined that quantum circuitry is extremely interesting and that I would like to learn as much as I can about it. Unfortunately, every introductory paper I can discover on the subject contains a lot of words I don't know, like "unitary matrix" or "eigenspace." Wikipedia tends to use more complicated math to explain any math concept, so that doesn't help a lot. Instead of trying to crush all this information into my brain, I believe I need to step back from quantum mechanics and get the linear algebra skills first.

Thus came a system for pushing out the zone of proximal development. Pick a length representative publication of some field or skill you want to learn more about and start trying to read it. As you read, create a list of things that it mentions that you don't know about, probably specific words/phrases but optimally concepts. Find a short paper or lesson on the new concept and try to read it. If you succeed and fully understand it, apply your understanding and continue reading the original document. If it mentions more concepts you don't understand, repeat the process and research the additional challenging concepts. It may take quite a while (maybe even years if you really know nothing to start), but you will eventually learn enough to get through the paper and learn the skills. After completing one document, you may find it helpful to find more, rounding out your knowledge in the field.

Personally, I would like to see this strategy used in high school education. Have each student pick an advanced topic and start researching it. Let this process branch out over a year (or more) and watch as students learn all the things. The result: a class of experts, far above their grade level, in many fields.

The Most Interesting People

I like to talk (quite a bit, as you know if you watch me on YouTube), but I also like to listen, especially to things that I only know a little bit about but am mildly interested in. I can, and occasionally do, start talking about a subject I know a lot about, then - as I mention something that needs to be understood to understand the original concept - drill down in the information.

I think I could learn a lot by listening to such streams of information. One problem: people who are willing to talk so much and know things that are interesting to me or useful in the real world are very hard to find. That's very unfortunate, because I consider such people the most interesting in the world.

What I'd like is to find such a person, sit down, and listen to him/her talk for as long as both of us can stand it. I would learn so much, even if I didn't catch all the details; it could open entirely new fields of study for me to consider.

The First Drive

With my new learner's permit, I am permitted to drive around with adult supervision. I started doing that today, keeping a log of my hours as directed in the GDE book.

My father and I used the Toyota Highlander to drive around the farm to introduce the way of driving and practice techniques like turning around. We also went on the (generally empty) highway to get the feel of driving on major roads. This went on for an hour and helped me quite a bit in understanding what generally needs to happen to operate such a vehicle.

Me, with key and permit

In car

To celebrate this milestone, my family invited me to drive to the Pizza Hut in a town about 16 miles away. I did so, both ways. My hands were sweating the entire time, but the entire experience was very relaxing (for me at least, I can't say the same for my parents). I'm most comfortable driving at 40 MPH, but my speed tends to creep up gradually. One challenging thing, especially on highways, is that I can't always tell where I am in my lane and therefore am unsure if I need to adjust my position.

This is very exciting! I've already logged about two hours of driving, including some at night (on the way back). 50 hours should be easy to do in 9 months.

The Juncture Council: A Ministry Organization Layout

I recently thought up the following company structure for a nonprofit organization and presented it at a meeting for a forming ministry a few hours ago.

Most organizations today follow a simple "command hierarchy", if you will, from the board of directors to the executive director through a bunch of people down to the people who actually do work. In nonprofit organizations, especially those with a vision, the visionary is typically not the type of person who wants to deal with all the implementation/facilitation details like law or finance.

Therefore, I propose a new structure, one that clearly separates the roles of chief visionary and executive director, also being sure to prevent the animosity between the types of people that produces tension or fallout in an organization. Instead of placing one chief from each "side" in a superior/inferior relationship, place each of them at the top of their own hierarchy. The chief visionary's subordinates include PR, spiritual leadership, outreach opportunities, and other things that generally don't involve a lot of hard real-world facilitation. Things under the executive director include administrative assistant, treasurer, legal counsel, and whatever other objective and non-interesting (at least to the visionary) jobs need to be done to implement the ministry.

The unique feature of this structure is the juncture council: the coming together of the vision and the implementation hierarchies. It is, in essence, a board made up of people who want to make all the amazing things from the visionary side happen in the real world, compromising if necessary to meet with real-world requirements, as assessed by the implementation side. Then, all the actual doing of things and action committees are placed under the combined authority of the juncture council. When problems arise or progress needs to be reported, the juncture council also acts as a router to inform the appropriate top director as to the situation.

The job of the chief visionary, once everything has been set up, is to hand down assessments of the effectiveness of the vision implementation to the juncture council and maybe also look for new areas to expand into. The executive director's continuing job is to facilitate the ministry's operation by navigating the hierarchies, cutting red tape, and getting stuff out of the way of people who know how to do their job.

I hope this idea will help you in some way. Be aware that information and command often flow in totally different paths, so be ready to create a different organizational chart for resources.

Level Up

Today is an important day for me! I took the last final, thereby ending the academic year, in which I received all A's, at least for the normal year. (We shall see how I did on the finals, but that doesn't have a huge weight, not as much as people make it out to be.) Also, I went to the DMV to apply for a learner's permit.

The only final I had to take today was the Spanish one. I thought it started at 9:00 and therefore arrived at 8:30 to be prepared. It actually started at 8:30, so I had 15 fewer minutes by the time I went up to sit in the exam room at 8:45. Fortunately, it was a fairly easy test and I had plenty of time to complete it. I also, as I wrote about yesterday, reset and turned in my iPad.

After a failed attempt to go to Coldstone Creamery with some friends (they were closed), I went instead to the DMV. After a wait, they had me take an eye exam, which I barely passed; apparently, my right eye is considerably weak. Then came the actually interesting part: taking the computerized traffic law test. After getting the practice question wrong, I went on to get a perfect score on the real test, skipping one strangely-worded question about buses. I can drive now, kind of!

I feel like this day is important; I've survived my first year of high school and have started the driver's licensing program.

Turning in the iPad

As I may have mentioned before, my school has been issuing iPads to high schoolers to augment traditional classroom teaching with technology. Tomorrow, they are taking them back; we are switching to real computers (Lenovo laptops) next year.

In my and many other people's opinion's, the iPad program was not helpful. In fact, I think the things were more distracting than useful. We only used them in biology to connect to sensors, and that could have been done with actual computers, probably with fewer issues than we had with iPads. Some web sites like to serve stripped-down "mobile" versions and recommend that mobile users get an app. This is really terrible because [1] I can't use the website like I wanted to, [2] I have to go through the annoyance of downloading an app, which [3] almost never (fully never in my experience) has the advanced capabilities of the actual web site. I'm looking at you, YouTube, Blogger, SpanishDict, and also kind of Wolfram|Alpha because the app costs $5 while the real website is free and fully functional on real computers.

So, I am very happy that real laptops will be issued. I might actually be productive while sitting around in a class after the teacher says "you can do whatever you need to." And, of course, I will actually for the first time have a modern laptop.

Simulating Other People's Minds

I think I've figured out the secret to acting, at least in the sense of character philosophy. (Emotions are hard to simulate, especially if you don't have a lot of them.) Basically, you can act as or predict the actions of somebody if you can understand two things: philosophical postulates and the logic engine.

Philosophical postulates are things we hold to be the basics of how the world works. They are generally moral ideals or balances, like "some lives are more important than others." Different postulates will obviously produce a different person.

The logic engine is what takes the postulates, considers the current state, and makes a decision. Though I would love to use my own logic core, which I believe is very logical should be usable to compute from any set of postulates, some people allow emotions or "heat of the moment" to override the general postulates. This is distinct from those postulates because people starting with the same postulate set but different logic engines may factor physical state into different areas of computation.

I believe this technique is very useful both for actors and people who want to predict the actions of others. It shouldn't require psychoanalysis, but you may want to talk to the person you're trying to simulate first, for better results. Of course, if you have a record of that person's past decisions, make sure your interpretation of these components produces decisions consistent with what actually happened.

Testing Too Early

After getting a perfect score on a practice test on the material we've covered so far in driver's ed, I am apparently allowed to go to the DMV and get my learner's permit. This alarmed me somewhat. Basically, they gave me two pieces of formal paperwork, told me things to write on them, and said I could take them to the DMV whenever I wanted to take the real test for a LP.

I do not believe this should be possible. I have absolutely no documented behind-the-wheel training, and suddenly I can take a simple test that will allow me to actually operate cars? Even if I somehow fail (which is unlikely given my experience with farm equipment), I've been given the opportunity to handle a vehicle in a test - which assumes I know things - without ever studying. A driver's license is such an important thing; more (read: any) experience and training should be required.

Driver's Education

It has begun! Less than an hour ago, I left the driving school that will lead me to (hopefully) get my driver's license. The first half-hour was comprised of waiting in line to process some paperwork and choose some dates for driving tests. Once all that was done and the line behind me finished, we had 31 students in the class.

The other teacher (not the one I gave paperwork to) instructed us to read the first six chapters of the Rules of the Road book on our desks. Since I had already started reading it while waiting for the rest of the line to be processed, I finished the assigned reading quickly and started reading ahead. The last few minutes of the two-hour class were the most interesting: actually summarizing the reading. He said that the other classes will involve much less silent reading, which should be more interesting. We shall see.

Elasticity of Proximal Development

It's time for another theory of questionable plausibility!

A few months ago, I was extremely busy and extremely stressed. School was overloading me with all the things and I wasn't sure if I was going to make it through one particular week. It was around that time when I started to get back into ye olde DOS games that had taken up so much of my time a few years ago. It was this rediscovered joy that led me to rewrite FleexCore and, later, create Abiathar.

Remembering this sequence of events led me to a theory: pushing the proximal development envelope causes an elastic-like shift backwards in interests. If this is true, it may be useful in some sort of weird psychotherapy research environment to access the emotional stability, logic engine (something I'll write about another day), or just interests of the past.

This one is way more likely than the sentient superspace, but still on the untestable/ridiculous side.

The Immense Lost Details of History

In this world of information overload, it's fairly easy for people (and especially the government) to keep a very detailed record of other people's lives, who they interacted with, what small things they did, and generally everything most strangers don't care about.

While I was thinking about this, I began to comprehend the massive amount of history that has been lost to us. Since information recording and transmission (or retrieval, depending on your point of view) gets rarer/harder the farther back we go, it's impossible to know the fine detail of important historical figures' lives. They may have had all kinds of less interesting events going on that influenced decisions we think were made rashly or randomly.

If we just had access to the equivalent of the massive volumes of information the NSA (allegedly) has, we could have entire lives or disciplines dedicated to studying one mildly important person - or their interactions with other important people. Imagine: there could be a college class for the interactions between Albert Einstein and one of his teachers.

Who knows? Maybe the NSA will turn into a historical preservation and research information.

"Mystery and Victory" Concert

Just a little while ago, I came back home from viewing an album announcement concert at the local church. Its worship band just finished all the new songs for it and have made it purchasable, which I did. The church had been redecorated in a blue theme, matching the CD cover. After some of the songs, the color scheme in the lights switched to an intense orange, then later back to blue.

The entire experience was very good; it's very generous of them to provide the concert for free. It was called a "night of worship", but wow, that was amazing and definitely could have made some money.

Thanks to hbcd_worship for a great night!

The banner

Finals Intensify

Today I learned that the final exam for Spanish contains more parts than I thought. In addition to the normal one-hour reading/writing test, there are listening and speaking components as well. We took the listening part today in class; it was pretty easy. Tomorrow will be the speaking examination. It's actually very similar to what we did for Chinese: prepare a Spanish dialog with another person and perform it in class for the teacher to judge. I also took a non-final history test, which is the last one before we start reviewing the semester in class.

NHS Treasurer

Today in an NHS meeting, I said some things somewhat related to economics. As a result, they elected me treasurer. I will be holding that position starting immediately and continuing until next year's (2015) elections. I don't think the NHS chapter has complicated financial concerns, but if they do, I'm probably one of the most qualified to deal with them. We shall see.

Final Exams Engage

With the end of my first high school year coming up, final exams are things that I need to be thinking about. In fact, I have already finished the equivalent of a final exam for two classes, world literature and Chinese, both of which have something more like a final project.

In world literature, we each were assigned an area of folklore to research and do a paper and presentation on. I chose/received Greek and Roman mythology, which are essentially the same thing. I've fully finished the four-page paper, which is considerably less than I had expected the assignment to mandate. I'm not complaining, though. Presentations will happen later this week; I just need to touch up my PowerPoint draft and I'll be ready.

Chinese was a more interesting experience. The assignment was to, with a group,

MID-SENTENCE INTERMISSION: Split infinitive is no longer considered a grammatical error by leading grammarians and scholars.

create a dialog between people speaking Chinese and also write down the PinYin and traditional character representations. Each of us three students will play one role in the situation, in which one person introduces another to the last and they proceed to have a conversation. This conversation contains words and ideas from all the chapters we covered throughout the year, thus making the assessment suitable for a final exam. I just finished this a matter of minutes ago.

The classes I actually have to take real tests for are biology, history (world history), math (pre-calc), and Spanish.

Mother's Day

Yesterday at Chinatown, looking through the shops, I was searching for a gift for my mother, as today is Mother's Day. I came upon a tea pot of the type used by the Three Happiness Restaurant, which I visited yesterday and my mother visited the last time she was in Chinatown.

She seemed pleased

Story/reminiscing time: My family frequently calls my mom "Mummer" due to a mispronunciation I made when I was about five years old. I was trying to address her, but accidentally combined "mom" and "mother" to make "Mummer." It has remained ever since.

The Chinatown Trip

Today was one of the busiest and most interesting I have had for a long time. As I said yesterday, the Chinese class, some people who were in the Chinese class but no longer are, and a member of the senior class who is actually Chinese went to Chicago's Chinatown for a day of cultural immersion and exploration.

The car ride up (and down) took three hours, all of which I and the other student in the car slept through. Fortunately, neither of us were driving.

The restaurant the teacher had intended us to go to was closed for renovation, so we had to find a similar thing nearby, which fortunately wasn't too difficult - same restaurant type (Three Happiness Restaurant) but smaller. So instead of looking at real dishes, we looked at a menu to decide what types of dim sum to get for our table. Some of the more notable dishes I tried were (pardon the lack of real Chinese words):

• Extremely tough spare ribs
• Super salty ball of shrimp
• Noodle-wrapped chicken
• Sesame seed ball of red bean paste

I was actually fairly successful in using chopsticks. When we were all finished there, I was very full, as were the rest of the students. From there, we went on to peruse some shops. This happened for most of the day. A lot of the shops were very similar, with lots of Buddha statues, glass sculptures, fake swords, and a whole lot of other interesting stuff that I cannot identify with English words. At one such shop, I purchased a teapot, which I will hopefully use for holding tea.

We also went to a Chinese grocery store, which contained all kinds of interesting Chinese (surprise!) foods. I purchased a bag of White Rabbit candy, which is amazing.

There was a little museum of Chinatown history, which mostly contained information panels about Chinese festivals. On the second floor, we saw a short documentary about how Chinese men came to America during a gold rush, to Chicago via the then-newly connected railway system, and later brought their families to create Chinese associations in Chicago, which blossomed into Chinatown.

I didn't take a camera or any electronic device (and many shops prohibited photography), but some of my friends did take pictures, so I may be able to get some up later.

That was a really long and interesting day! Tomorrow, I have all the homework.

To Chinatown

The Chinese class in which I am a student is going to Chicago's Chinatown tomorrow; it's like a field trip but also an application of what we've learned about Chinese language and culture. It should also be a great opportunity to eat some new types of food or buy some unusual souvenirs. We'll be leaving at 8:30 AM and arriving back at the school at 9:30 PM, leaving us almost the entire day to explore Chinatown.

This is pretty exciting for me; I actually get to see some of the culture I've been learning about in the classroom. I'm not really big on shopping sprees and souvenirs, but I might get one to remember this trip.

More details and an account of what happens will appear tomorrow!

Newspaper Feature

Talking to people drains my energy; that's part of being an introvert. But I also really like to be recognized and talk to people about things that excite me, like Lojban or computer science. That's why I was really excited (not to mention surprised) when my school recommended me to be featured on the local newspaper's "student of the week" section.

They sent me a four-question questionnaire with some very vague questions like "what makes you happy?" I wasn't really sure what to talk about, so I did my best to mention Lojban and Abiathar and such as much as possible. With this and my recent entry into NHS, it seems - in the words of Londo Mollari - my star is rising.

The Mile

It seems that my frequent goings-out to run around the moderately large property have turned out to have been very worthwhile. The PE teacher, despite the suddenly warm and humid weather, decided to have my gym class run the mile today; it's one of the five national standard fitness tests. The course was a grassy soccer field, with some odd detours to make it exactly a mile after running around the perimeter four times.

I was not expecting a time any better than 8 minutes. To my shock, when I came in after the fourth lap, my time was 5:51, almost 2 minutes faster than my best. Since school graduation requirements mandate that everyone is involved in a sport in high school, I suppose I'll join crosscountry.

Clinton Chess Tournament, May 2014

Yesterday, I went up to another instance of the Clinton scholastic chess tournaments, in which I provide a simultaneous exhibition - playing all the students at once. The turnout for the tournament was decent, but almost all the players were brought there by my local chess club.

Playing the simul

Of course, I won all ten of the simul games. Some of the parents did hold out very well.

Ice Skating?

Well, I tried something new today.

My high school took all its students to the local ice rink for some skating. I had tried to skate once before, on a similar school trip in 5th grade, and failed miserably. Fortunately, it's been a few years, so I seemed to be a little more in control of my balance.

I managed to stagger over and onto the ice without falling down. Like most of the other people who had never skated before, I used the wall as a crutch and continued to remain upright, though some stumbling did occur. In an uncharacteristically brave moment, I let go of the wall and moved out toward the center of the rink. Of course, within moments, my feet went opposite directions and I fell.

I actually continued a cycle of moving around a little bit followed by falling for quite a while, bringing my total to eight in an hour. Near the end, I was actually able to move around with only some less-than-elegant rebalancing required. Like in most things, I did my best to figure out for myself how skating works, which resulted in a probably very strange version of procedures for such things, but it worked for me.

Like everyone says, trying new things is a good thing. I'll never be a hockey player, but this experience was enjoyable. My elbow still hurts, though.