12th graders experiments

Today during class we went down to the patio and watched the 12th graders did their roller coasters. Many of them were not very consistent. Although one kids project was very consistent. Every time he did his run it was perfect. Each roller coaster had its theme. One project was in New York City, which was done by Alicia (I think). Another one was about Candy Land or something like that by Marifer. Another project was about a jungle, because it had animals and stuff like that by Carlos. A really cool project was the FIFA roller coaster done by Rafael A. At the end of the tunnel, the marble went into a goal. It was pretty consistent aswell. Then there was Rudy's roller coaster, which didn't work very well. It had very sloppy tubes and was not desinged well. The last one is Rich's roller coaster, which aperently was the first one completed. So they had an excuse, because their barrels were saggy. I think this project was called the Chinese roller coaster. There was one more project, but it wasn't ready yet. It's group members never got organized I guess. Well, I think that they did a great job onthese roller coasters concidering that they only had one week to do it. Most of them I heard did it two days before the excibition. It would be very fun to do one like the ones I saw today.

Francisco´s speach

Today a man named Francisco gave a speach about the war. He talked about his experiences in the war and the most tramatauzing events that he saw. As the class, we asked him questions about how he felt about enterinig the army. He also talked about how to view life and stuff like that. His thoughts were very helpful to me. I thought that yhe didn't not tell the truth on some subjects. Either, he is not telling us the truth or he doesn't know ythe truth himself. The war in Iraq occurred, bacause the USA wanted the oil from Iraq so that poeple in the USA could have enough gas to still drive their SUV's. I did not want to bring it up, because I might have upset him. Basically the US Army lied to the soldiers. Plus, I think he is sort of a patriot himself, so I didn't want to get him going. I don't understand how a man so easy going as he is, not know the real truth about the Iraq war. Saying that, it would interesting to hear some of his other stories that he has.

My self

I would like to write this text to explain to you what I like to do and my personal qualities.I am Thomas (Tommy) and I was born in Mexico City, Mexico in 1994. I have been living in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for nine years. I also have lived in Colorado, United States for four years. I have four sisters who all are in their twenty's. I speak two in a half languages. They include Spanish, Enlgish, and Portugese. I am probably 5'8-5'9 in height.
For fun activites I go out and explore. Since I live on the beach, I take my sea cayac and explorer new beaches. My favorite subjects in school are Math and Science, although this year we are taking Life Science, which is really boring. I prefer Earth Science. I consider myself a good student. I am one of the top 15 golfers in Mexico. I have won a couple golf tournaments regionally and nationally. Obviously, since I live on the beach I surf. My surfboard is called fishboard and is 5'11 in length. I also play soccer, not as much as I used to, but I still play. I went to a soccer tournament in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, which was a great experience. I have traveled almost around the world. I have been to Europe, Pacific Islands (Bora Bora), South America, and North America. I am a type B, which means that I am chill and relaxed out. I never get nervous about things except when it gets down to business and I try keep my mind very calm. I like action, comedy, and inspirational movies with Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Dave Chappell, Brad Pitt, Adam Sandler, and Will Farrel. I like Hip-Hop/Rap music, along with some techno and rock. One of my favorite singers are John Mayer, Eminem, Young Jeezy, T.I., DJ Tiesto, DJ Khaled, and Lynard Skynard. I like watching ESPN, MTV, Comedy Central and many others.

This is only a little of myself. I don't like all of the attention and thats why some people like me. Who ever is reading this, I am sure they will find friendship with me. Well.....whatever.

People Effects on their songs

I have not done mine yet! ??
I realized that almost everybody had this random noise right in the middle of their song. Hope's song had like a burp. Everybody's song had many effects mixed in their songs. Only a few had a constant beat. Most of the people did put a lot of effort, although I saw some that were not complete. I did not hear in any song a underlayer beat. All of the effects were really random. I heard lots of of tone effects, that didn't really connect well with the beat of the song. I thought that all of the songs had to be 90 seconds long. Some of them were way shorter than 90 seconds. There were also some that were way longer than 90 seconds. All in all I thought they were not bad at all.

Mash ups

We have been working on song remixes. Today we got into groups and listen to each others remixes. I thought Adriana's had the best beat and all of the songs seemed to join together perfectly. Eduardo's was also good, but it was not very long. Laura's was to long and the songs did not mix very well together. We never watch Rodrigo's mix, but I am sure it was very well mixed since we loves music so much. Most people did not put many effects. This was probably because we have not been taught how to do this. I think everybody did a good job, considering it was the first time.

I did my remix on Garage Band. This was extremely confusing, since Mac has bot mastered this program yet. I used 3 songs to mix. They were called Si Senor, Hero, and I am so hood. They seemed to fit pretty well, although I should have used a tool to combine them better. As I said earlier, the Garage Band is hard to use. I think my remix was pretty sweet for the first time I made a remix. Maybe in the future I will spend some more time on this program and make the best remix in the world.

Social Media

Social Media is a very extensive topic. Now a days schools, business', and even families are using the internet and other things such as cellphones and TV. It is amazing to realize that 20-30 years ago these utilities were not available and today probably 70% of the worlds population is familiar with social media. In the next paragraphs, I will explain what we use social media for.

Many schools these days are now allowing kids to bring their laptops to school. Although other schools think that the students will get distracted because of Myspace, Twitter, Facebook etc... I think the fact that we can use these gadgets, such as Facebook, can benefit our grades. In projects I have used the gadgets to complete my homework. In my opinion, It is great to bring laptops to school under the condition you do not miss use the gadgets.

There have been some dangerous issues with Facebook and Myspace. Some kids have been kidnapped because they post all of their information on Facebook. This makes it really easy for the kidnappers to know where he/she is located. In fact, 5-6 months ago there was a kidnapping in Mexico City. This kid was the son of some hotshot business man. Later on after they caught the kidnappers, they admitted to use Facebook to get personal information. Hopefully kids now realize the consequences of putting personal information.

All in all social media has benefited the world tremendously. It has been great for all types of people. People can now contact each other from across the world via the internet. People just have to learn how to control themselves n and not put personal information on the internet. Once again, I can not stress enough that everybody should learn and be familiarized with social media.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVXKI506w-E&feature=related

Typing Reflection

Since the beginning of the year my typing scores have gone up. At the beginning I was doing very poorly. I could barely even locate the key that I wanted. I could only type 12 WPM at the beginning and now I can type up to 18 WPM. As you can see, I am definitely improving. My accuracy has also gotten better. I've gone from 72% to 83%. I think my personal goal will be to constantly type 20 WPM. To get there I will need practice, like any other thing. I hope to get at least around 15 WPM and 80% accuracy on the "blind test".

My Artifact from the future

My Artifact from the future is great for surfers. It will allow surfers to be able to not get tired while catching spectacular waves. The thing I didn't like about this project is that the teacher wasn't here while we were doing it. It was very difficult to communicate with the teacher, since he was in Dominican Rep. I did like the fact that we got to do an artifact from the future. It will be interesting to see if our ideas will actually be invented.
This was Jorge's artifact http://jorgevitalsblog.blogspot.com/. I thought this artifact was interesting. I hope this machine does not get created. It will be horrible if it does get created. In this project, I saw very good pasting work. All of the pasted objects fit in perfectly with the original picture. Although I can see one baby that is in the machine. It is a very slight defect in the picture, but it still looks very real. I learned from this picture that you can turn any normal picture into an artifact from the future.
I would hate to see the artifact. It would be terrible. Imagine babies made from a factory. They would ask you, "Where were you born?" You would have to say, "I was born in a factory in Beijing, China." You would not really have any family. Imagine no mom and no dad. That would be awful! I do not think they would allow this artifact, but if it were available I would never even consider buying it. If people were to buy this machine it would make then loose a lot of money, because they would have to care for tons of new babies. This machine would increase the world's population by millions. Nice picture, but not the best idea.

Future Artifact Picture

Clasroom behavior tips

I think that our class has been treated very nicely. Ever since third grade we have had problems with our teachers by our behavior. In my opinion, teachers aren't strict enough. I think the best solution for a kid who is being disrespectful during class, is to kick him out of class. The consicuences are much greater then, beacuase the kid will miss the whole lesson and will have to come during recess and get the work. I also think that some kids just don't realize that the teachers are normal people. Imagine if your mom or dad was a teacher and they constantly got bombarded with bad behavior by their students. I am sure you would get mad. Everyone deserves the same amount of respect!!

How to make shadows

From this tutorial I learned how to make shadows. It is a very simple thing to do. Somehow I will add this in my picture. Maybe it will the the shadow of the surfboard when it is standing up. I can't wait to see how it will look once I am finished. I think this effect will be easier to do than the rain tutorial. It will still I'll look sweet anyways!!!!

How to make it rain

From this tutorial I learned how to make rain on a photo shop picture. One of the main steps is that you have to put a new layer in order to make the rain. I think I will put this rainy effect in the background of my future artifact. It will relate to the artifact, because it is water and the surfboard belongs in water. I know its not that good of a relation, but at least it looks cool.

Future Artifact

This artifact is awsome. I am more than sure that it will appeare in future cars. I bet they will be extra cost. Infact they already have some displays on BMW's. The displays on the BMW's show your speed and RPM's on the windshield. This sweet ond hope to see it in the future.

I already know what I am going to invent for the future. I am going to try to draw a surfboard on photoshop with a little motor so that you don'y have to paddle. I can't wait to get started. Maybe someday my invention will come true.

Family Tree

Do weeks ago my sister got married. That has been the most recent family reunion yet. It was very fun. Almost all of my family members went. We had a sweet picnic at a Park in Colorado. We played the game where you put a beer bottle on top of a ski pole and you each have a ski pole. You have to hit the beer bottle with a Frisbee, but if the other team catches the Frisbee and the bottle you don't get points. You also have to have a beer in your hand. Its a fun game, especially with family!

Famly Tree

My biggest challenge when doing my family tree, was getting all the pictures of my family members. Fortunately my mom had a ton of pictures on her computer. So I had to email then from her computer to my email so I could get them on these computers in school. Another problem that I had was that I didn't know how to make the picture smaller. My buddy Eduardo helped me out with that!

Family Tree

I picked this tree beacause it has many branches. My family needs all the branches they can get, because we are on big family and I love them!

First Impressions

I did not know what a blog was or how it was used. I also thought that making a blog would be complicated and difficult. In fact, it was so easy I could have done it with my eyes closed! From what I observe, the blogs are used for contacting people and publicizing yourself on the web. You could say that a blog is like having a Myspace or Facebook.
I have put some of my hobbies and characteristics on this page, so take a look at them. xD

Learn all about Tommy