R. W. BLAH

          Do you have a sibling? I do. Is having a sibling a good or bad thing? Just like two sides of the same coin, I believe there are pros and cons to having siblings. I have an older brother, who is definitely my role model in many cases, and I enjoy his company a lot, only with mixed feelings now and then.           For example, I have relatively advanced basketball skills compared to my peers, and my older brother would get most of the credit for training me. On the one hand, I am proud of my skill development, and appreciate him so much for being my coach. On the other hand, sometimes playing with him can seem impossible, as the Dunning-Kruger Effect states that highly capable individuals assume that everybody else is just as skilled as they are. Playing basketball with him can be challenging.  My brother and I are getting along (very crazy I know), picture taken by my mom.           S...

  Photo was found  here . “Shokaku is a crane of some kind.” “For lifting things?” Will asked. “For flying. A crane is a large bird,” she corrected him. “Seems like a logical thing for a crane to do,” Halt mused. “I suppose you wouldn't expect it to mean a hiking crane or a waddling crane.” - Author: John Flanagan My favorite series is Ranger’s Apprentice, a collection of amazing fantasy novels, written by John Flanagan. The storyline follows the life of Will through his footsteps from a new Ranger Apprentice to a fully fledged Ranger. Through his journey, Will has to face numerous challenges, both physically and emotionally draining, in order to become stronger. The details, plot, and the value it has, are what really made these works of literature stand out to me. Even though I’ve read many different novels, this stands out to me because it feels like I am experiencing the occasion in real life. The elaborate use of sensory details really allows me ...

  “One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.” “I don't want to be thought of as the 'girl who was shot by the Taliban' but the 'girl who fought for education'. This is the cause to which I want to devote my life.” These are just a couple of the many inspiring quotes from Malala Yousafzai. Known for advocating for human rights, especially the education rights for women, Malala Yousafzai was not only the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate, but also the second Pakistani who ever received it.  Malala was born on July 12th, 1997, in the Swat District of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province into a middle class family. Her family didn’t have enough money for a hospital birth so she was born at home with the help of neighbours. At her house in Mingora, she lived with her two younger brothers, parents, and two chickens.  Photo was taken from here . After women were banned from schools due to the Taliban takeover, Yousafzai started spea...

  Su Bingtian is the first ever Asian sprinter to break the ten second barrier on the 100 metre dash. Despite being five inches shorter than an average sprinter, his record of 6.42 seconds in the 60 metre dash is the fastest time in Asia and places him in the top five world wide. He even broke the 10 second barrier on the 100 metre dash.           Bingtian was born on the 29th of August, 1989 in the Guangdong province of China. His early career went mostly unnoticed until he obtained three straight wins in the Asian Grand Prix series in May of 2009. In 2011, he set a new Chinese record of 6.56 seconds in the 60 metre dash, and soon won the 2011 Asian Athletics Championship with a personal best of 10.21 seconds in the 100 metre dash, establishing himself as the top sprinter in China. Bingtian leading the sprint at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics semi finals for the 100 meter dash. Source For Su, 2013 started off strong with two national records in the 60 me...

          Hamadou Djibo Isaaka was a gardener working in the Niger capital, and a modest swimming pool attendant until the day when the International Olympic Committee offered him a wild card, guaranteeing his qualification in the Olympic Games. The wild card policy was created to allow Niger, the landlocked country situated in a desert, with no formal rowing clubs, lakes, equipment, or even head start, to have an Olympic rower. That leads to Isaaka’s first time ever being in a boat three months before the Olympics of 2012, in which he was to compete.  Watch as Isaaka valiantly pulls towards the finish line. Source Now three month later, with the best efforts from Isaaka, it is not surprising that the Sculling Sloth, or Isaaka the Otter, didn’t manage to get to the finals. In fact, the closest he got to the finish line was 8 minutes and 36 seconds, more than a minute and half slower than the qualification requirement. However, the crowd didn’t root for...

                                                                                                       link           Steven Bradbury was born on October 14th, 1973 in Australia, where Winter Sports were not fanned by most. Despite that, by the age of 20, he had emerged as the best speed skater in Australia. Soon after, he advanced as a skater of international class , inspiring 3 others to join him in the Olympics. This was how Australia won its first ever Winter Olympic Medal (Bronze) in the 4x5000 meter relay at the 1994 Olympics of Lillehammer.           Bradbury didn’t stop there. He strived to compete with the best...

          In the 1976 Montreal Olympics, a Russian athlete named Boris Onischenko, or dishonest chenko was going to compete in the modern day pentathlon. Pentathletes swim, run, shoot pistols, ride horses, and fence. Onischenko won the team gold in 1972 and the single silver twice.           This would likely be Onischenko’s last Olympics, as he was already 38 years old. Many assumed he would leave the Olympic games with yet another medal, as the Russian team was fourth with their strongest skills still to come. The second day was the fencing competition, with a round robin tournament spread around 46 matches in 12 hours. The aim was to win 70% of the matches, which would award a point bonus.           The Russians played the British early that day. Onischenko beat Danny Nightingale, Adrian Parker, and then Mike Proudfoot, who called an official to inspect the Russian’s fencing equipment. The offi...

picture was found  here           The Olympic motto: Faster, Higher, Stronger. This couldn’t seem further from what happened in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, where Eric “The Eel” Moussambani, a 100m freestyle swimmer representing Equatorial Guinea, almost drowned in his attempt.           Eric Moussambani didn’t start swimming until high school. At the time, there was no standard swimming pool in Equatorial Guinea, nor a swimming program. So he practiced in a hotel pool in the open hours and at other times in the river or by the beach. He asked fishermen for advice, but the fishermen taught him only how to stay afloat, not how to swim quickly. Despite the fact that Moussambani was a layman in the swimming world, he was given a chance to compete at the Olympics.           When Moussambani arrived at the Sydney Olympics, he had never seen a 50 meter pool before. He sat by the pool and watched ...

                The high jump changed forever in the Olympic games of 1968 in Mexico city. It all started in the early 1960s when Dick Fosbury was still a lousy jumper. His hero Valery Brumel continued to break records while all he broke was his hand. His friend had bet that he couldn’t jump over a chair and he couldn’t. His coach tried to help him with the western roll, but with little success. His highest jump stayed at 1.63 meters, 60 centimeters off the world record at the time.           In 1963, while striving to break his personal record, Fosbury tried something different. He lifted his hips and pushed his shoulders back, which got him a new personal high. After that, he converted from sitting on top of the bar to laying flat on his back. This way, he could soar over the bar while his center of mass stayed below the bar. The innovative technique dramatically improved his personal best by almost 15 c...

                    Just a couple weeks ago, I feasted my eyes on the oldest tree in Illinois while eagles and blue herons flew around me, a snake swam near me, and a fish jumped over my canoe. This all happened in the Cache River, a 92 mile long wetland that provides a habitat for more than 100 endangered species. It used to be a floodplain, but when the Ohio River took its present course, the Cache River became a swamp.                     When I visited the Cache River, I went canoeing in a route that would take us to eagle pond, which is an open pond surrounded by ancient bald cypress trees. The majestic eagles were flying around the beautiful pond as I drank in the scene. We would then go to see the champion cyprus. This 1000+ year old living bald cypress tree lays in a small secluded area branching off of the Cache River. This tree is so old that you aren’t even ...

The seas of the Antarctic The freezing panoramic King penguins are swimming But that’s just the beginning The beach on the horizon away A daunting challenge underway King penguins have hungry chicks They must take unnerving risks Leopard seals lie just ahead They don't like being unfed Slipping, jumping, and diving It’s a game of surviving Next come the elephant seals A maze! What an ordeal Waddle, slide, and sway Penguins made their way Finally back to home land Where million chicks stand Singing a familiar song Brings them to their young Greeting with nourishing Hugging, kissing, and laughing The father knows how hard he tries Just to bring the sweet prize

          To be honest, I thought that Math Kangaroo was just another Mathcounts. However, I would soon be proved wrong. Mathcounts is mainly based around problem solving in a mathematical way, whilst Math Kangaroo is more centered around logic.           Earlier this spring, on my first practice exam, I got an 87, which is not bad, however, it's far from being a national winner. To be a national winner, I needed to practice a lot more. And I did. I gradually got better the more tests I completed, which reflects the old saying, practice makes perfect.           Now that I am humbly ranked as the 2021 national winner with the 18th score in the competition, I would like to recommend some tricks for you and me on the next Math Kangaroo competition if it is to your interest.           One way to practice is to refine your logic and reasoning skills. For example, Chess or ...

Len was trying to equate the current Princess Cassandra-the caretaker ruler of the kingdom-with the picture his companion had drawn of a wild adventurous tomboy terrorizing the castle guards. “You’d never guess it now. She’s so calm and dignified, isn’t she?” “WHERE THE BLIND, BLUE, BLITHERING BLAZES HAVE YOU BEEN?” the calm and dignified Princess Cassandra demanded.           This is a great example that not everything is what it seems like, and I get to share with you a book that is full of surprises.           The book I read was Ranger’s Apprentice: The Royal Ranger: A New Beginning. This book has a fun and humorous personality with an emotional, entertaining, and exciting plot, while still maintaining a serious attitude. It was written by John Flanagan, an award winning author who has also written many other books. He is the author of Erak’s Ransom, which won the Australian Publishers Associations Book of the Year for Olde...

You’ve just been staring at your screen for hours, scouring the internet for entertainment. Is it a healthy habit to do so? We all know it is not. According to Time Magazine, It's a bad sign if you are still looking at a screen by bedtime. But what is really the healthy amount of screen time for a person per day? Screen time isn’t a bad thing, but too much can have detrimental effects on a person; and screen size matters too. For example, the CDC found that you do better on exams when you limit screen time to two hours or less. Also, you would have less fatigue looking at a computer or a large monitor compared to a phone, because the screens are much larger, and you tend to squint less when looking at a large screen. However, during quarantine, if you are a kid like me who does remote learning or an adult working from home, it's hard not to clock in at around seven to eight hours a day. Therefore, we should take every chance to stand up, rest our eyes, get some fresh air, an...

What does it take to be successful? Is it money, intelligence, popularity, or simply luck? Well, you might be surprised to know they barely even contribute to success.  According to a Ted-Ed video on the traits of successful people,  the 8 characteristics of high achievers are to be passionate, work hard, focus your energy on one thing at a time, keep pushing yourself, come up with good ideas, improve at what you do, serve others, and, persist until you succeed. All success starts with passion. You can’t become good at something without that burning child-like curiosity in the subject you wish to pursue. Without it, you could be aimless, wandering around, hopefully still trying to find something you enjoy doing. However, with passion, you will enjoy working hard, focusing on a specific field, and become great at it. At the same time, most likely you will persistently push yourself, and continue to work harder. Along the way, gaining ideas and creativity is important, wh...

Many of us probably remember 2020 as the worst year of our lives. To cheer us up, I did some research about good things that happened in 2020.  A team of scientists have been researching a way to separate the salt and the water from salt water using graphene-oxide membrane; an exciting breakthrough that might potentially allow us to have an abundant source of drinking water. The cure for Polio is coming. Since 1998, the amount of people diagnosed with Polio has decreased significantly by around 99%, so that only very few people today are still fighting the wild Polio virus. Pollution is dropping drastically. Directly associated with COVID-19, many of us are staying at home, so fewer emissions are let into the environment, making 2020 have only half the emissions of 2019. SpaceX, for the first time ever, sent astronauts into space. Many countries, including the U.S., have started giving out vaccines.  I think these 5 things are 5 significant landmarks. While we are still prac...

This may be what you look like if you don't watch out          Did you know you can grow a bone in a short amount of time? I don’t suggest it, because it is the result of endless screen time on a small tablet. That tablet is known as a phone. You can get something called “text neck” if you look at your phone too much with extremely bad posture.           Text neck” as it is called, causes neck pain and soreness. Also, looking down at your tablet too much every day can least to back pain ranging from chronic pain to muscle spasms. If you already have a text neck, stretches and exercises that increase flexibility and strength are recommended.           Bad sitting positions are very difficult to reverse, however, anybody can do it with a little bit of luck, perseverance, and practice. People with small posture problems are able to reverse it relatively easier, but the actual difficulty is maintaining...

Flash! Snap! Picture taken, photo downloaded. Taking pictures may seem very easy now, but the fact is, like many other technology developments, photography has gone through a lengthy development phase. The word photography literally means ‘drawing with light’. We can see why if we take a look at the first camera. The first camera was actually a room with a small hole on a side wall. Light would go through the hole, and since it is reflected in straight lines, the image would be projected on the opposite wall, upside down. When the very first photograph was taken, the actor had to pose for eight hours-. Although, it was soon shaved to 15 minutes. But still, can you hold your posture for even 15 seconds? So, perhaps the next time you pose for a picture, you’d appreciate how fast and easy the way it is now. The lens takes all the light bouncing around and uses glass to redirect them to one point, creating an image. When all of those light rays meet back together on a digital camera...

Is this a sentence? Why are there so many buffaloes in one sentence?  Introduced by this Ted-Ed video , it is actually grammatically correct, but how?  There are three meanings of buffalo. The first is a proper noun, like bison. The second means to bully, and the third refers to the city, Buffalo, New York. To understand it, let’s add a couple of words. That would make it “Bison from Buffalo bully Bison from Buffalo who bully Bison from buffalo.”  Now let's say you want these bullying buffalo across the ocean. You could use a Ship-shipping ship shipping shipping-ships. Now what does this pile of words mean? Well, imagine a colossal ship-shipping ship that is shipping shipping-ships. However, a way to stop buffalo fighting on the ship would be welcome. A can-can dance contest seems like a good idea. Like always, some Can-can Can-can can can can can Can-can. Interesting, these piles of words are just getting bigger, aren’t they? Well, a can-can is a flamboyant dance. Can al...

Imagine this. A trolley is hurtling down the tracks toward five workers who can’t escape. Fortunately, you can divert the trolley to a different track with one worker who also cannot escape. Would you sacrifice one to save five? This is known as the trolley problem, a moral dilemma, a situation where there is absolutely no good answer. One study shows that 90 percent of people are willing to divert the trolley to kill the lone worker, while 10 percent say that they will keep driving. Now, consider a twisted version. You are on a bridge, with a man with a heavy build next to you. A trolley is heading down the tracks towards the five workers, who are somehow tied up and can not move. You, however, can push the man off the bridge and his body will stop the trolley with the brutal sacrifice of his life. Under such a scenario, which option would you choose? Not surprisingly, only ten percent of the recorded people say it is okay to push the man off the bridge. These two scenarios...