Ups and Downs

Everything has its ups and downs. Yes, even blogs. The past couple of days have been ups, lots of stuff to write about. I guess that's because of school. There are tons of things going on at school, tons of topics to bring up. But right now, it's a down. Most likely because it's the weekend. For me, not much happens on weekends. Some people go places. As for myself, I wake up just in time for lunch, eat, watch some anime or something. Go outside and do whatever. Yeah, pretty boring.

Happy People Live Longer

So I see this Time magazine, and it's talking about happiness. People who are actively participating in their faith tend to be more happy than people who are not. Also, take two depressed people. The person who is a big believer in their faith also tend to be less depressed than one who, well, isn't. Of course, there are exceptions. But with most people, religion gives them a purpose, and a better sense of self-worth. Then they started talking about these scientists who were monitoring brain activity of a buddhist monk. The monk started to meditate, and they soon saw a great increase in brain activity in the foward left side of the brain. It turns out, when the brain has lots of activity in this area, the person is happy. As a result, this happiness emotion can be controlled, by people like said monk. Also, they thought that they could determine how much a baby would cry. You know those babies who cry when you get near them, and then the babies who fall, smash a knee or elbow, look sad, then start smiling when you come near them. These scientists were thinking that they could tell if a baby would be a cryer or not depending on the amount of brain activity in that area of the brain which controlls happiness.

It's amazing the kind of stuff you can find when you look... or are sitting at the table at 5:30 am eating breakfast, lol

Women Setting Maturity Standard

This came up, I think it was, yesterday in geometry. Sometimes my teacher likes to go off on tangents for a couple of minutes right after the bell rings at the start of class. But I found it somewhat interesting. He was saying that it was women who set the standard for what is "mature" and what is "immature". The thing is that guys don't really use, "you're so immature" as an insult, really. Instead, we usually say things more along the lines of, "you mother f*****" or something like that. So, "you're so immature" is usually what women say, and to guys. Because when a woman says, "you're so immature" to a guy, that basically means, "this means we're not going out on Friday night." Because, a girl wants to be with a guy that she can actually be seen in public with. And guys want to be mature, just to date women. Because if women would date men how we are naturally (I am a guy... straight for those still wondering) then there would be no need for us to become more mature or to change at all.

So that's how women set the standard for maturity. An interesting thought from my geomtry teacher... before we started class.

Halo 2

Halo 2 is a great game. I mean, good FPS, great action, lots of weapons, all the good stuff you all probably know about it. And naturally, it's main attraction is its multiplayer and Xbox Live options. Lots of people I know play on that with friends against other people around the country. Now as for me, I don't have Xbox Live (although my Xbox came with a free Xbox Live one month trial thing) and instead I play against my little brother and sister. I'm content with that, and I hear all my friends talk about Halo 2 for Live. Wow... these guys are super competitive. One of said friends is like... a total demon in Halo 2. Game starts, couple seconds later, "gained the lead" by said friend. I think it's kind of interesting that for me, the game is pretty fun to play campaign or split screen (vs. mode) with my brother and sister, but for others, it's one of the most competitive games around (in it's own circles) and (in said circles) is used kind of like a status symbol.

Real-World Applications for Math

This happened a little while ago, but I was looking at the newspaper, and it was talking about applying math to real world situations. I have often wondered when I am ever going to use anything I have learned in math in the real world. Turns out, I'm not alone. The article said that America is a country in which many of its high school students do not know how to apply what they learn in the classroom to real world problems. Apparently, out of 25 or so countries, America ranked about 12th in how well its students could apply what they learned in real life (this is high school). I find that very interesting because, after all, the whole point of taking such advanced courses is to know how to solve real problems, is it not? Some of the top ranking countries were Japan, Germany, and France. That was just a few of the top ranking countries, but the point is still this: many American students don't know how to use what they have learned. That's not to say, however, that American students don't learn higher math, like calculus, it's just that they don't know how to use it. Disappointing, very diappointing.

Power of Religion

Okay, first I should probably say that I am, more or less, agnostic. There. Now, the power of religion. I first got inspired to write about this because I turned on the tv several weeks ago, and I caught the tail end of somebody talking about it, and he was saying that very religious people have been known to live long lives, enjoy slightly better health, have confidence, etc. Now, I also must agree that religion gives strength to many people all over the world; and I'm not limiting it to any one religion. I'm talking about any religion. People often times use that religion to gain strength in both day to day activities, and during a time of crisis.

I have had conversations with others in which religion has popped up. Essentially, their argument went something like, "nobody really knows which religion is the 'right' religion, so the thousands of people who worship in this way are wrong." My side of the argument then points out this statement, "even if it's wrong, people still draw on it for strength. It gives them the ability to go through anything from a normal day to something like the loss of a loved one. Sometimes it can be a very powerful thing." Their response, then, to that has gone something like, "then they're just holding on to a (possibly) fake ideology and religion. It would be better to try and find it within themselves to go through something like a crisis; not relying on possibly false ideals."

Yes, I have met several people who think like that; religion is pointless and unnecessary for the person, they should just find strength within themselves. Well, that's all good and well, and in an ideal reality, everybody would do that. However, most people can't. In fact, very few people actually can do that. That way of thinking is very ideolistic, and not everybody is going to be able to do that. I was watching the national news the other night, and they were talking about the soldiers in Iraq. They say that almost all of the soldiers attend the mass, and all of them pray for strength. Now, ideally, none of them would ever have to do that. They could simply find it within themselves to persevere. However, the world, and most people, don't work that way. They need something to rely on. Anything they can find to draw strength from people will. Those soldiers have definately found a means of strength. Even if some of them were like me and others, they don't necessarily believe there is an all powerful diety, they still use religion to draw strength.

I just find that interesting that so many people, especially soldiers during war, can find strength and courage from religion, even if religion itself could be nothing more than a wrong idea we humans have.

Sayonara, Freshman Backpack!

I'm taking a quit break from the tons of work I have to be doing to do a quick post. I meant to talk (more) about stuff like, religion, but I suppose I'll probably get around to it either tomorrow, or the weekend. Now, I just did a total reorganization of my well, organizational system to prevent me from being made fun of for my freshman backpack. Now you may think it's shallow, but I really was getting tired of hauling that thing around... So, here are two ways to rid yourself of your freshman backpack woes:

1) get a locker in the general vicinity of all of your classes so you can stop by it frequently.
2) use my organizational system.

Now, if you're lucky, you can do (1) Unfortunately, all of my classes are in the east building of my school, and my locker is on the far side of the west building... not a very good combination. And lots of other people have that problem too. On top of that, all the teachers (for honors) nearly expect you to be the best student and have a folder devoted to each of your wonderful classes. Well, in order to implement my system, you're gonna have to piss off those kinds of teachers. So, first, here's what I was hauling around in my giant packpack!

1x Japanese textbook (can't drop it off in locker)
2x 3 subject spiral notebook
1x those nifty little expanding files for multiple subjects, I'll call them "expandifolders)
1x Japanese binder
1x Geometry workbook

Wow... what a haul, as compared to now, which I'll get to later. Now, basically, for my grand system, all you need is that nifty little expandifolder. Yes, that's all you need, that, and some notebook paper. All you do is use the notebook paper for notes, and when you fill up a sheet, put it in the appropriate section. Also any papers can go in that same section or (if you've got a big expandifolder) you can have one section for notes, and one for random papers, for each subject. And that's basically it, now my backpack looks like:

1x expandifolder
1x Japanese textbook
1x Geometry workbook

Wow... what a light backpack. Of course, you'll probably need various other books (usually for English, novels I mean) pens, pencils, calculator, etc. Which can go into another pocket or just the bottom of the main pocket if you have one of those two pocket backpacks. Now, after a while that expandifolder could get pretty full. What do you do? You can have a medium/large sized binder which you keep at home with divider tabs, and after a while you deposit your notes and other papers into the appropriate sections. There, I just totally gave you a much lighter backpack, and a couple less insults/jeers that could be made at you during your wonderful school day. Back to work!

Budo vs. Bugei

This is something that has been churning in my mind for quite some time, too long, in fact, and must be gotten rid of. So I figured I could dump it there for those interested. This may not be what everybody thinks is fun to read/talk about, but this blog is actually covering a wide array of subjects in my life, and I'm pretty well rounded (okay, not really, but still). So, for those who don't know, budo and bugei. Both essentially mean martial art (in a very simple explanation) however budo deals more with self cultivation and spirit, and bugei focuses on battlefield applications. Put it more simply: budo= self cultivation, bugei= handling life and death situations with use of combat techniques.

Okay, now you may be thinking, "well, who the heck teaches anything bugei?" Well, that's the thing, not a lot. Unfortunately, that's what I'd prefer learning. Stuff along the lines of kenjutsu, stuff that had been tried again and again on the battlefield and with real application, with those using unreliable technique probably ending up getting killed. Unfortunately, most of what anybody has today is budo, stuff like say, karate-do (the "do" is usually omitted). As of now, most of that is used for sport, and that's not really what I'm looking for.

Mom is always saying that I need to do some activity to do whatever, so I keep thinking, "is it really that big a deal, to want to go with bugei arts?" Well, for me it is. But then I think, "well... I could always take a budo art now and learn bugei... later. It would give me something to do and make my mom quit griping!" So, one thing I am considering now is kendo, way of the sword, instead of kenjutsu, which would be actual battlefield applications of the sword (Japanese sword, actually). The more I think about it, the more I think about how I could learn both... But more thinking is definately in order.

A New Look

As you can probably see (if you can't you must be blind, no offense to those blind people) I have changed the look, and name, of my blog. Even the address is changed... I dunno what to do with the old address... yikes. So there were a couple reasons of this. The first of which being the fact that Shogun's Fortress wasn't catchy enough, and it didn't represent what the blog was all about. And the look well, it took me a while to find a new template, but I found one, we'll see how it does. So that's just about it, just felt like posting on that. I have a lot of homework I have to do tonight. Well actually, not a lot, I just have to space it out and do it all in incriments, today and tomorrow. Eh, I'll probably start after dinner or something. For some reason I feel like watching that show Wife Swap, or whatever the name of that show is on Fox. There's supposed to be a ghost on it, looks kind of interesting.

Freedom of Press: too much?

The first thing I see for AOL when I log in is a little screen that has a bunch of news things on it. One of the things I see is people saying that the press has too much freedom from the 1st amendment to the constitution. According to this AOL news article, 36% think that newspaper articles should get government approval, 51% says they should publish freely, and of course, 13% have no opinion. Naturally. So, do I think the press has too many freedoms? Well personally, I don't read every single newspaper article there is in every newspaper I get. I flip through, look at headlines, read important stuff, like Iraq, read big bold lettering, if there are any pictures of hot girls I'll stop to look ^_^ but other than that, I don't really read all the newspaper. Now, there was another story about some high school newspaper that had an article about a coach paying his players for stuff like showing up to practices, blocking shots, etc. I guess they're talking about that when it comes to "too much freedom?". Well, personally, I think that stuff SHOULD be in the paper. I mean, I might wanna get on that team ^_^ Okay, not really. But I do think that if something wrong is up, people do need to know about it. And this isn't necessarily talking about any crooked coaches or whatever, but I mean anything. If there's something bad happening in the government, I'd want to know. Especially if it's my tax money that's being spent on it... But yeah, there are limits to press I think; like saying something that purposefully hurts somebody's image. I think that's a crime even. But what I'm saying here, is if we didn't have such freedoms, than a lot of things could end up getting swept under the rug, which would allow more people (like say, the president or something) to get away with a little bit more, especially if the government itself had to approve articles. I think that these amendments were set in place for a reasonn, and I also think that these are some main reasons why America is like it is today.