What is the LHC?

We all ponder our place in the universe at some point. There is a machine that can now make our wonders into more of a reality. This machine is called the Large Hadron Collider or LHC for short. It was invented by C.E.R.N and built by a collaboration of over ten thousand scientists and engineers from over 100 countries. It lies in a circumfrance 17 miles long and is one of the largest and most complex experimental facilities ever built. The machine collides two proton beams at extemely high speeds. The result has been something known as the "god particle". Basically a recreation of life being formed in the big bang and confirming something known as the "Higgs field". This field allows light to turn into matter. Very mind warping stuff. Some scientists fear that the refiring of the LHC in 2015 could result in black hole formation and detroy the earth. Im not a part of that bandwagon and I think the discoveries that will be made from the reasearch will allow for technology and transportation upgrades in every facet of our civilization as well as an understanding of where all life actually stems from. Is this the end of religion as we know it? Is this going to destroy all life to make room for new life? So many questions to answer in our near future and I for one will be glued to my computer when this takes place because its entirely groundbreaking and exiting.

Gardening

To work outside in the sun and feel your hands in the dirt while coaxing a living thing to take root in your yard can be a very rewarding thing. I wish I had the time to really garden and create a living ecosystem for me to experiment with. Not that I want to act as a god but I love the balance that takes place when you bring in certain X factors that the plants react to. For instance thinking outside the box with an indoor houseplant one can use a c02 tank from a paintball gun and increase the c02 levels in your man made ecosystem giving you different colors and better overall plant growth. The more c02 a plant "eats" the more oxygen it emits which can in return purify the air for all to enjoy. Another thing I love is grafting or suturing a mature branch of lets say an orange tree or avocado tree to an immature one to make the plant produce more quickly. I could litterally sit and watch the grass grow as it were and if I could I would. To produce food and color for your family to enjoy is never a bad thing. Garden more. Its not just for retired folks but it will help you slow down in a very fast paced world. To me thats a nice thing.

the importance of surfing and having dreams in the eyes of a nobody

Each of us has things that allow us to connect and feel a part of something bigger. the most easily relatable for most people is religion. People gather together to pray and be mindful of where they are in that moment and let go of the pain or suffereing they often feel. since 1999 my church or temple or mosque has been the ocean. The power of the circular motion of waves carrying me forward and the lack of thought required is my form of prayer. The exact moment when the wave picks me up and I stand to my feet feeling the pressure build and then settle has been as close as I get to peace in many years. I don't surf anymore. I attend school, I work, I parent and I sit. I am far from my spirituality in so many ways. Weather the ocean or the woods I dont have a place that most people have like church. I havn't set aside a certain day where that is what I do. This greatly troubles me. How can a person grow up and keep themselves true to who they are at the same time when society calls for us all to be carbon copies of what it beleives success looks like. For me success looks like surfing and hiking and living simply and being poor. Not of soul. Not of character. Just money. In most eyes that is idealism. To me its simply MY dream.

"Again, all over" A song for a friend who survived brain cancer at 16

When a young man is told he is going to die
intravenously accepting this information that night
at 16 years old with a gleam in the eye
his mother always strong began to tremble and cry.
the outlook looks promising they said to the lad
so keep your head up and try hard not to be sad
but a tumor in the brain is like summer with no fan
and hot anger made the sweat drip from his brow

He felt like a stranger among his good friends
yet he wore a big smile so we wouldn't feel bad
about living our lives with no worries or plans
I'm sorry I didn't see it then
we sang and we smokes cause its what we did and
I'm sorry this happened to you just a kid
you always loved us and tried to fit in
your soul is alive due to the life you life
I cannot imagine the pain or the fear
to fight against cancer yet still live among peers
I admire your courage cause I would be weak
this is what I would tell you if we ever speak

Again, all over I appreciate you now..
now that its over you should forever be proud to be..just be

When the chemo made your head hurt and you couldn't go out
with the rest of the cool kids and drugged up night owls
if it were me I woulda' gave up, thrown in the towel
even though I didn't know you long to know you I'm proud
you still have a friend here if you ever come back
across oceans or emotions as a matter of fact
but keep where your at your on a good path
I bet your family's so proud...

I wonder how often all this clouds your mind
and how you remained humble stalwart and kind
I wonder how many friends I have lost over time
through suicide and drinking and deciding to drive
from shotguns and pistols and pills in a line
at least there's you to remind me not to cry

Again, all over I appreciate you now
now that its over you should forever be proud to be..just be

The world we live in

"The road to hell is paved in good intentions". This quote has never rang more true for me in the last month. As a student I base my performance in school through grades and test scores. I base my feeling on school as an entity on my ability to do well. Every day I intend to get down to business a new unforeseen challenge arises to try and prevent my steps like hidden quicksand on a beautiful stretch of woods. Thursday my home was broken into and among other things my laptop was stolen along with all the notes and work both personal and academic on it. My initial response was anger and disgust at the violation of the safety of my family home. I wanted to seek revenge and take justice into my own hands. I learned that the only justice is personal freedom from the situation meaning I will not allow my actions to be controlled by another individuals nor will I allow myself to seal my future through revenge like the criminal who did this sealed his. I have learned that the only peace I will find through the countless academic and personal struggles I am facing is to remember the mountaineers step and take small breaks as I walk uphill to the top. If I have to retake this semester so be it. If I have to rebuild everything in my life I will do so. My goal is the same as each student that attends college. I wish to better myself and I am learning that my grades and academic performance do not always reflect the growth in my own life. Take this post as you will but each of you who reads this can relate to the notion of perseverance and relate in some way. My message is clear. Do not measure your life on what the report card says or people say about you when you are not there. measure it in the achievements that mean something to you and you will never fail. I am not a life coach or an example of the model human being. My credentials do not state that I am a person of authority on time management or life skills. I am a student, a father, a lover, and a friend. I am failing most of my classes and I do not have perfect attendance. I struggle every day but I am here and I am me and I will not give up.

 

Trees are made of music

Have you ever heard that music is conducive to plant growth? My understanding is that classical music actually helps plants and trees grow but what about plants and trees making classical music? Bartholomaus Traubek has devised a way to give trees a musical voice using variations in the color and texture of the tree rings and translating that information through the program abbleton into piano music. Tree rings can tell you the history of a specific tree and each one is as different as a fingerprint and so is each musical score. I find this fascinating because how many other forms of life can be measured in music? In my opinion all things living or non living have a beat. Think of the leaky faucet and the white noise of the television mixed with the footsteps of children and hacking of grandpa upstairs. Mix all of it together and you get the beat of your household. Every thing in the world is an instrument in a symphony. The composer and conductor is life.. Below is a link to a song from Bartholomaus Traubek's album "Years"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxZuqiSigrM

The flipped schedule

We talk a lot about the flipped classroom. I think that it has many good points for improving teacher student conversation as well as student interaction.How many times have we all just not had enough hours in the day to get it all done? What about a flipped schedule? This would be where we attend classes during friday saturday and sunday and have the weekdays off. We could study all week and then be really prepared for the classes that weekend while being able to hold down regular jobs and take care of children and so on. especially for adult scholars I feel this approach would be helpful and would solve many problems for full time students/workers/parents.

doc 2 topic-My writers voice

I think that we all have authority on the subject of the flipped classroom. Most of the students in our class have not experienced a flipped classroom before and being immersed in one gives us each a different opinion thus giving us each a different voice on the subject. There are many differences in all of us in the classroom and from that perspective there will be many differences in the ways in which we all learn. Flipped classrooms are relatively new comparative to say the socratic learning method and research must be done to determine the effects on a wide variety of ages and backgrounds. I will be interested in looking further into how different people respond to flipped classrooms and what age groups benefit the most. 

To tell a story

To tell a story means different things to different people. stories can create an image for a doctor through medical reports or help a small child fall asleep with thoughts of candid adventures of some magical hero or quirky cartoon animal. Stories can invoke fear or sadness, happiness or want. Each of us tells stories in different ways and for different reasons and for me writing stories is about painting pictures. I have always wanted to be able to draw or paint and found that with words I can do just that but in peoples minds. That means that each person will see my mental illustrations in a different way so my image is never fixed as it would be if it were a picture on a canvas. For example think of saying this statement. "Her hair is blonde" OR "Her hair looks like the golden strands of an orb weavers web" I think that the latter sounds cooler. I mean we can't always speak like that but adding color to otherwise drab every day statements makes writing and listening more fun. Basically what i'm saying is that the use of imagery is forever important in writing no matter what the purpose of that writing is. Draw in your readers at work or as a scholar by adding vivid pictures in the minds of your readers while at the same time stimulating an often unused tool in the modern age..Imagination.

On a starry winter night in Portugal

Where the ocean kissed the southern shore

There a dream I never thought would come to pass

Came and went like time spent through an hourglass

-Teena Marie, “Portuguese Love”

The flipped classroom

 I have been reading some of the statistics of the flipped classroom and one thing I really liked from the website I've been reading is that it provides more teacher student interaction. Instead of standing at the front of the class and hoping that the students get it by asking "any questions?" the teacher can individually spend time with a student if that student is having trouble understanding a topic. I think that is a better way of teaching simply because many students just don't want to raise their hands and say I don't understand. If anyone is interested this article is informative and pretty cool. I enjoyed reading it.




http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar13/vol70/num06/Evidence-on-Flipped-Classrooms-Is-Still-Coming-In.aspx

I have stated that I prefer a flipped classroom in the past and I would like to reiterate that statement because I like the idea of most of the work being completed before we begin class. I think that for outside the box thinkers it works well because traditional classrooms tend to be boring and there is a lot of room to goof off. Flipped classrooms you can still goof off and not do the work at home but if that happens your going to fall behind for the rest of the week. I also like the amount of confusion involved thus far with the flipped classroom because I get it and it makes me feel smart!

writing in a group. What works and what dosnt

I find that when I am writing in a group I tend to take the assignment less seriously because I know that there will be either one or a group of people there to do their small pieces of the assignment. I find that when working in a group I also find it difficult to get my own opinion across because there are several opinions being stated that can sometimes conflict and no one wants to argue over a school project so maybe everyone compromises when they normally would have stated something different. This being said I think it is beneficial to work with others because you have more than one set of eyes proof reading your work before it is turned in giving you higher probability of getting a good. The best way to find out if your writing makes sense is to have others read it and if your group has your back then your paper will almost certainly make sense. I think that working in groups really works as well as it doesn't and in my opinion an assignment is difficult either way but there's one facet that is important about working with groups vs. not working in them and that's that once your employed most things will be group oriented or team oriented so we all should get used to it and succeed while doing so.

The flipped classroom technique

I personally have never been very good at doing homework but the flipped classroom approach seems to make sure that students like myself stay on track and complete all the work assigned in a more timely fashion. It also seems to eliminate some of the procrastination I constantly struggle with. How can I not procrastinate on homework and studying when there is a whole world of plants, bugs, weird people, waves, pavement to skate and amazing things out there to be observed or messed with that always seem to pull my attention away from my studies! I also like the flipped classroom because if i have any questions about things I don't understand I can always have help from my instructor. Especially when it comes to writing documents and adhering to APA format which I understand but sometimes don't follow. I will be interested to see how much the flipped classroom increases in popularity in the future as I watch my own son go through school.

Doc 1 blog

I am enjoying this assignment very much because before this class I never payed attention to my online identity and did not care what the internet had to say about me because in my opinion at the time it wasn't real. I am learning that in most cases in this day and age what the internet says about you is actually more important that what you have to say about yourself. This project has shown me how critical it is to create a positive online image and keep up with it. I find that strange but interesting from a psycological stand point because employers are more interested with what an individual can do according to his resume or online identity rather than taking the time to see what he can do in person. This allows businesses to cut training time and cost by matching individuals to a job opening but much like dating there has to be some merit, no matter the times and technological advances, to actually meeting a job candidate and allowing personality and speach/connection coupled with a good resume in deciding if a person is right for the job.

Writing to learn

Writing to learn is important in understanding material and for pushing the material into the longterm memory. Writing to learn also shows that once you are able to put your thoughts on a topic on paper you have at least a base level of understanding about that topic. When I think of writing to learn I think of classes where there is a lot of material to cover and I write all the important things down so I remember them better. The connection with handwriting notes and memory retention is pretty cool.

My name is William, I am a teller of stories and a student of the old arts. Computers, phones, and internet have little value to me and while I aprreciate the speed and ease of communication I have found that with most things in life going as fast as you can is not always a good thing. As much or as little about a person can be said in an introduction done by ones self. The length and depth has merit but the nature of that person once you speak to them and find out what makes them unique is what makes you want to know them or not. I am not a blog post, google search, facebook identity, or marketing statistic.