Friendship

Friends. A word that you use on a daily basis. You are surrounded by them, and you have some that you dont even know about! But what exactly are friends?

Friends are the family you choose for yourself, a famouse quote that is written across one of my hot chocolate mugs! But what does this mean?

Family are the people that you are stuck seeing everyday. You can never truly run away from them, and are bound to have fights and quarels with them (especially your annoying younger siblings!!!) But you still love them. Friends are the people that you get to choose to see and talk to everyday. They are the people you choose to surround yourself with, and they are the people that your rely on to help you when you are stuck, and to trust you no matter what.

If you have a good friend, do whatever it takes to hold onto them, and show them that they mean the world to you! Show them that you are really happy that you guys are friends, and when the going gets tough...Remember the good times, and get through them! If you have a really close friend, keep them as close as possible, because if they ever leave, you will miss them...

To all of my great friends out there, just wanna say thank-you for being such good friends, keeping up with all my "crap" and staying by me when the going went tough...Just wanna say that i love you guys, and you mean the world to me!!!

One Universal Language

Well, a few weeks ago (ok, maybe it was a week and a half ago) our school had a Speech competition, and everyone had to take part in the first few rounds... I some how made it throught to the finals (even though i didnt win). There were only three people for each grade group. I chose the topic One Universal Language, and managed to say the speech without too many mistakes. Here is a copy of my speech (even though I might have changed a couple of the lines and stuff while I spoke...) Please leave some feedback as to what you thought about it. Thank-you.

**It has the bibliography and parenthetical references...just ignore the stuff in the brackets if they dont make any sense... **

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Bonjour, Ciao, Angyong, Kemcho, Hola, Jambo, Saluton, Hello. What are these you may ask? Well, they are all the same greeting said in different languages. But why do we have so many languages? Why can’t we all just talk in one language? Does it make us cooler to talk in all these different languages? The definition of language is “communication by voice in the distinctively human manner, using arbitrary sounds in conventional ways with conventional meanings;” (Language – Definition from dictionary). Language is supposed to aide communication, not complicate it. So there should only be one language that we speak in, making the communication aspect of this easier.

This speech is being spoken in English, but what if I were to speak in Kiswahili? Una fahamu wile ame aleziwa? Maybe a little French? comprenez-vous ce que je dis ? Or maybe gujurati? Thune Kuburche hu su keyuchu? Unless you already knew these languages, you would have no idea what I was trying to say. I just asked, in all three languages, Do you understand what I am saying?

There was actually an attempt at creating a Universal Language. L.L. Zamenhof, later known as Dr. Esperanto, spent many years creating the artificial language of Esperanto (Harold, Donald J.). He learned the rules and laws of many European languages, like French, Spanish, English, German or Italian, and then had to understand the common roots in order to create newer versions of the words for Esperanto. This took many years of research, but eventually he was done. In Esperanto, Esperanto means “One with Hope” (Harold, Donald J.). This was a good way to describe Dr. Esperanto, as he was a hopeful man in believing that everyone would pick up on his idea for Esperanto, the Universal Language (Harold, Donald J.). Unfortunately, he was wrong. The idea of this language did not pick up as well as hoped, and only a mere two million actually speak the language (Harold, Donald J). Esperanto failed because by the time it had been created, many schools were being taught in English, or the native language in that region (Harold, Donald J.). The two most common languages are English and Chinese Mandarin, with more than a billion speakers for each, and so it was impossible for Esperanto to compete with them.

But where did all these different languages come from? No one is sure, but there is a very interesting bible story. It is called the “Towers of Babel” (Tower of Babel – Genesis 11). Many of God’s people were gathered at one place, and so they all started to talk, and through talking with one another, they came up with the decision to build a tower that was high enough to reach god, and where he stayed (Tower of Babel – Genesis 11).. God came down to see the tower, and thought that if these people could build a tower because they could speak the same language, then they could do anything they want, because they can speak the same language (Tower of Babel – Genesis 11).. God didn’t like the idea of them being able to do whatever they wanted, and so he gave each and every one of them a different language, and put them in their own part of the world to live in (Tower of Babel – Genesis 11).. This is just one theory as to why there are so many different languages in the world. Another theory is that because many people lived in different locations, they had to learn how to communicate in their own way (Tower of Babel – Genesis 11).. Because they didn’t have Internet, or telephones at this time, and so they had no idea what other people were saying (Tower of Babel – Genesis 11).

This obviously led to problems in the later years. Once people started to interact, there were many communication problems. People had different meanings for different words, and sometimes when they tried to say something nice, they would be insulting another tribe, and vice-versa. A good example of this is when Bob wanted some eggs in Nairobi. He went to the kiosk down the road, and asked for some. Here I should mention that Bob speaks English, and no Kiswahili, while Mwangi (the man who runs the kiosk) only speaks Kiswahili. Bob went up to Mwangi and asked “Please can I have some eggs?” Mwangi had no idea what he was saying, and so ignored Bob. Bob kept asking Mwangi for some eggs, and after half an hour of trying, he gave up and went home. The next day he came back and asked for eggs. Again Mwangi didn’t understand what he was saying, and ignored him. The next day, Bob decided to try shouting at Mwangi, and Mwangi did not appreciate this. He punched Bob in the eye, and then laughed at him. In all of Bob’s pain, he could only shout out “My Eye! My Eye!”. In Kiswahili, “Mayai” means eggs. Mwangi then said “Oh, na taka mayai?” and gave him some eggs.

What do you think? Wouldn’t it just be easier if we had one language, instead of the thousands that we currently do? If we could all speak the same language, and not have any problems with communication. Everyone could be understood, and like Bob, no unnecessary pain will have to be felt. Dr. Esperanto had a great idea of trying to create a universal language for all of mankind to communicate in. Unfortunately his plan did not work as the leading languages were English and Chinese Mandarin with more than one billion people speaking each of them (KryssTal). Compare this to the world’s total population of six billion, and you can see that the numbers are very high. There is still a long way to go if the whole world were to adopt one universal language, and now the ultimate question, is this possible in our lifetime?

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So...honestly, tell me what you thought about my speech.

Twenty Best April Fool's Day Jokes

Even though I had wanted to put this up before April Fool's Day, I couldn't, and thought I might as well just put it up now. These are the twenty best April Fool's Day Jokes ever played. I got them from the site http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/. I think that they are rather funny, post a comment if you have something else you think should be on here.

#1: The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest

In 1957 the respected BBC news show Panorama announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees. Huge numbers of viewers were taken in. Many called the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC diplomatically replied that they should "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."

#2: Sidd Finch

In its April 1985 edition, Sports Illustrated published a story about a new rookie pitcher who planned to play for the Mets. His name was Sidd Finch, and he could reportedly throw a baseball at 168 mph with pinpoint accuracy. This was 65 mph faster than the previous record. Surprisingly, Sidd Finch had never even played the game before. Instead, he had mastered the "art of the pitch" in a Tibetan monastery under the guidance of the "great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa." Mets fans celebrated their teams' amazing luck at having found such a gifted player, and Sports Illustrated was flooded with requests for more information. But in reality this legendary player only existed in the imagination of the author of the article, George Plimpton.

#3: Instant Color TV

In 1962 there was only one tv channel in Sweden, and it broadcast in black and white. The station's technical expert, Kjell Stensson, appeared on the news to announce that, thanks to a new technology, viewers could convert their existing sets to display color reception. All they had to do was pull a nylon stocking over their tv screen. Stensson proceeded to demonstrate the process. Thousands of people were taken in. Regular color broadcasts only commenced in Sweden on April 1, 1970.

#4: The Taco Liberty Bell

In 1996 the Taco Bell Corporation announced that it had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Hundreds of outraged citizens called the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where the bell was housed to express their anger. Their nerves were only calmed when Taco Bell revealed, a few hours later, that it was all a practical joke. The best line of the day came when White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the sale. Thinking on his feet, he responded that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold. It would now be known as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.

#5: San Serriffe

In 1977 the British newspaper The Guardian published a special seven-page supplement devoted to San Serriffe, a small republic located in the Indian Ocean consisting of several semi-colon-shaped islands. A series of articles affectionately described the geography and culture of this obscure nation. Its two main islands were named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. Its capital was Bodoni, and its leader was General Pica. The Guardian's phones rang all day as readers sought more information about the idyllic holiday spot. Few noticed that everything about the island was named after printer's terminology. The success of this hoax is widely credited with launching the enthusiasm for April Foolery that gripped the British tabloids in subsequent decades.

#6: Nixon for President

In 1992 National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation program announced that Richard Nixon, in a surprise move, was running for President again. His new campaign slogan was, "I didn't do anything wrong, and I won't do it again." Accompanying this announcement were audio clips of Nixon delivering his candidacy speech. Listeners responded viscerally to the announcement, flooding the show with calls expressing shock and outrage. Only during the second half of the show did the host John Hockenberry reveal that the announcement was a practical joke. Nixon's voice was impersonated by comedian Rich Little.

#7: Alabama Changes the Value of Pi

The April 1998 issue of the New Mexicans for Science and Reason newsletter contained an article claiming that the Alabama state legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi from 3.14159 to the 'Biblical value' of 3.0. Before long the article had made its way onto the internet, and then it rapidly made its way around the world, forwarded by people in their email. It only became apparent how far the article had spread when the Alabama legislature began receiving hundreds of calls from people protesting the legislation. The original article, which was intended as a parody of legislative attempts to circumscribe the teaching of evolution, was written by a physicist named Mark Boslough.

#8: The Left-Handed Whopper

In 1998 Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a "Left-Handed Whopper" specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, etc.), but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the benefit of their left-handed customers. The following day Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax, thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich. Simultaneously, according to the press release, "many others requested their own 'right handed' version."

#9: Hotheaded Naked Ice Borers

In its April 1995 issue Discover Magazine announced that the highly respected wildlife biologist Dr. Aprile Pazzo had discovered a new species in Antarctica: the hotheaded naked ice borer. These fascinating creatures had bony plates on their heads that, fed by numerous blood vessels, could become burning hot, allowing the animals to bore through ice at high speeds. They used this ability to hunt penguins, melting the ice beneath the penguins and causing them to sink downwards into the resulting slush where the hotheads consumed them. After much research, Dr. Pazzo theorized that the hotheads might have been responsible for the mysterious disappearance of noted Antarctic explorer Philippe Poisson in 1837. "To the ice borers, he would have looked like a penguin," the article quoted her as saying. Discover received more mail in response to this article than they had received for any other article in their history.

#10: Planetary Alignment Decreases Gravity

In 1976 the British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47 AM a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur that listeners could experience in their very own homes. The planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth's own gravity. Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment that this planetary alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation. When 9:47 AM arrived, BBC2 began to receive hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room.

#11: UFO Lands in London

On March 31, 1989 thousands of motorists driving on the highway outside London looked up in the air to see a glowing flying saucer descending on their city. Many of them pulled to the side of the road to watch the bizarre craft float through the air. The saucer finally landed in a field on the outskirts of London where local residents immediately called the police to warn them of an alien invasion. Soon the police arrived on the scene, and one brave officer approached the craft with his truncheon extended before him. When a door in the craft popped open, and a small, silver-suited figure emerged, the policeman ran in the opposite direction. The saucer turned out to be a hot-air balloon that had been specially built to look like a UFO by Richard Branson, the 36-year-old chairman of Virgin Records. The stunt combined his passion for ballooning with his love of pranks. His plan was to land the craft in London's Hyde Park on April 1. Unfortunately, the wind blew him off course, and he was forced to land a day early in the wrong location.

#12: Kremvax

In 1984, back in the Stone Age of the internet, a message was distributed to the members of Usenet (the online messaging community that was one of the first forms the internet took) announcing that the Soviet Union was joining Usenet. This was quite a shock to many, since most assumed that cold war security concerns would have prevented such a link-up. The message purported to come from Konstantin Chernenko, who explained that the Soviet Union wanted to join the network in order to "have a means of having an open discussion forum with the American and European people." The message created a flood of responses. Two weeks later its true author, a European man named Piet Beertema, revealed that it was a hoax. This is believed to be the first hoax on the internet. Six years later, when Moscow really did link up to the internet, it adopted the domain name 'kremvax' in honor of the hoax.

#13: The Predictions of Isaac Bickerstaff

In February 1708 a previously unknown London astrologer named Isaac Bickerstaff published an almanac in which he predicted the death by fever of the famous rival astrologer John Partridge. According to Bickerstaff, Partridge would die on March 29 of that year. Partridge indignantly denied the prediction, but on March 30 Bickerstaff released a pamphlet announcing that he had been correct: Partridge was dead. It took a day for the news to settle in, but soon everyone had heard of the astrologer's demise. On April 1, April Fool's Day, Partridge was woken by a sexton outside his window who wanted to know if there were any orders for his funeral sermon. Then, as Partridge walked down the street, people stared at him as if they were looking at a ghost or stopped to tell him that he looked exactly like someone they knew who was dead. As hard as he tried, Partridge couldn't convince people that he wasn't dead. Bickerstaff, it turned out, was a pseudonym for the great satirist Jonathan Swift. His prognosticatory practical joke upon Partridge worked so well that the astrologer finally was forced to stop publishing his almanacs, because he couldn't shake his reputation as the man whose death had been foretold.

#14: The Eruption of Mount Edgecumbe

In 1974 residents of Sitka, Alaska were alarmed when the long-dormant volcano neighboring them, Mount Edgecumbe, suddenly began to belch out billows of black smoke. People spilled out of their homes onto the streets to gaze up at the volcano, terrified that it was active again and might soon erupt. Luckily it turned out that man, not nature, was responsible for the smoke. A local practical joker named Porky Bickar had flown hundreds of old tires into the volcano's crater and then lit them on fire, all in a (successful) attempt to fool the city dwellers into believing that the volcano was stirring to life. According to local legend, when Mount St. Helens erupted six years later, a Sitka resident wrote to Bickar to tell him, "This time you've gone too far!"

#15: The Case of the Interfering Brassieres

In 1982 the Daily Mail reported that a local manufacturer had sold 10,000 "rogue bras" that were causing a unique and unprecedented problem, not to the wearers but to the public at large. Apparently the support wire in these bras had been made out of a kind of copper originally designed for use in fire alarms. When this copper came into contact with nylon and body heat, it produced static electricity which, in turn, was interfering with local television and radio broadcasts. The chief engineer of British Telecom, upon reading the article, immediately ordered that all his female laboratory employees disclose what type of bra they were wearing.

#16: Man Flies By Own Lung Power

In 1934 many American newspapers, including The New York Times, printed a photograph of a man flying through the air by means of a device powered only by the breath from his lungs. Accompanying articles excitedly described this miraculous new invention. The man, identified as German pilot Erich Kocher, blew into a box on his chest. This activated rotors that created a powerful suction effect, lifting him aloft. Skis on his feet served as landing gear, and a tail fin allowed him to steer. What the American papers didn't realize was that the "lung-power motor" was a joke. The photo had first appeared in the April Fool's Day edition of the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung. It made its way to America thanks to Hearst's International News Photo agency which not only fell for the hoax but also distributed it to all its U.S. subscribers. In the original Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung article, the pilot's name was spelled "Erich Koycher," which was a pun on the German word "keuchen," meaning to puff or wheeze.

#17: The Sydney Iceberg

On April 1, 1978 a barge appeared in Sydney Harbor towing a giant iceberg. Sydneysiders were expecting it. Dick Smith, a local adventurer and millionaire businessman (owner of Dick Smith's Foods), had been loudly promoting his scheme to tow an iceberg from Antarctica for quite some time. Now he had apparently succeeded. He said that he was going to carve the berg into small ice cubes, which he would sell to the public for ten cents each. These well-traveled cubes, fresh from the pure waters of Antarctica, were promised to improve the flavor of any drink they cooled. Slowly the iceberg made its way into the harbor. Local radio stations provided excited blow-by-blow coverage of the scene. Only when the berg was well into the harbor was its secret revealed. It started to rain, and the firefighting foam and shaving cream that the berg was really made of washed away, uncovering the white plastic sheets beneath.

#18: Migrant Mother Makeover

In its April 2005 issue, Popular Photography ran an article titled "Can these photos be saved?" about how to remove unsightly wrinkles from photographic subjects. They chose, as an example of a photo that "needed to be saved," Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" photo taken in 1936 during the Great Depression. Lange's photo is one of the most widely admired in the world. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to describe it as the Mona Lisa of photographs, and the Migrant Mother's stoic expression is what makes the image great. Nevertheless, the editors of Popular Photography erased her wrinkles, softened her gaze, and removed her kids, transforming her from an iconic symbol of endurance into a smooth-faced, worry-free soccer mom. Their readers were horrified, not realizing the article was a spoof on the way magazines routinely touch-up celebrity images to remove blemishes and wrinkles. Hundreds wrote in expressing outrage at the defacement of such a classic image. To which the editors replied: Look at the date it was published!

#19: The 26-Day Marathon

In 1981 the Daily Mail ran a story about an unfortunate Japanese long-distance runner, Kimo Nakajimi, who had entered the London Marathon but, on account of a translation error, thought that he had to run for 26 days, not 26 miles. The Daily Mail reported that Nakajimi was now somewhere out on the roads of England, still running, determined to finish the race. Supposedly various people had spotted him, though they were unable to flag him down. The translation error was attributed to Timothy Bryant, an import director, who said, "I translated the rules and sent them off to him. But I have only been learning Japanese for two years, and I must have made a mistake. He seems to be taking this marathon to be something like the very long races they have over there."

#20: Whistling Carrots

In 2002 the British supermarket chain Tesco published an advertisement in The Sun announcing the successful development of a genetically modified 'whistling carrot.' The ad explained that the carrots had been specially engineered to grow with tapered airholes in their side. When fully cooked, these airholes caused the vegetable to whistle.

Email Forwarding

Don't you just hate it when one of your friends is gullible enough to send you a forwarded email. The one's that claim you will die if you don't pass it on, and that you will have good fortunes if you do pass it on. And if they send it on to all your friends, your other friends will do the same thing, and forward it on, normally back to you as well, and so you will receive the same email more than twenty times!!! Sure, some of them are useful, like the safety emails (a good example is through a rapist's eyes) which can help protect you, but the one's that say you will win a million dollars if you forward this on to twenty friends or you will be unlucky if you don't forward this get really annoying! They start to spam up your inbox, and after a while you are just rereading all the same emails over and over and over and over again!

For those of you out there who believe that the forward messages are real, they are NOT!!! Just by reading the emails, you should be able to spot all the incorrect spellings. If the email has the section where it says "jack didn't send this email on, and now he has no money" or "mary sent this email on, and now she is living with her husband and two kids in a 2 million dollar house" or something like that, then you should be able to realize that this is obviously fake. These people would have sent on the emails, and then the "good" or "bad" stuff would have happened, therefore they wouldn't be able to write it in the email they sent on to you.

One very annoying email to get is the Hotmail is closing down or starting to charge email. Here is a word for word copy of the email, read it and say what you think about it.

Hey it is tara and john the directors of MSN, sorry for the interruption but
msn is closing down. this is because too many inconsiderate people are
taking up all the name (eg making up lots of different accounts for just one
person), we only have 578 names left. If you would like to close your
account, DO NOT SEND THIS MESSAGE ON. If you would like to keep your
account, then SEND THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT LIST. This is no
joke, we will be shutting down the servers. Send it on, thanks. WHO EVER
DOES NOT SEND THIS MESSEAGE, YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE CLOSED AND YOU WILL COST
10.00 A MONTH TO USE. SEND THIS TO EVERYONE ON YOUR CONTACT LIST. NOW YOU
KNOW WHAT TO DO. PLEASE DO NOT FORWARD THIS or REPLAY. COPY THE WHOLE EMAIL.
GO BACK TO YOUR INBOX AND CLICK ON NEW. AND PASTE THANK YOU FOR YOUR
ATTENTION. It's no joke if you don't believe me then go to the site
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1189119.stm ) and see for yourself.
Anyways once you've sent this message to at least 18 contacts, your msn dude
will become blue.

First of all, the spelling and grammar is pathetic in this, and secondly, if you went to the link posted there, you would have noticed the date of the article's submission. This article had been written many years ago when the price of keeping hotmail, or any other dot com services open was nearly impossible. The prices had gone up too much, and so hotmail had been contemplating shutting down their free email service. The crisis soon passed, and so the threat for our beloved email accounts to dissappear was momentarily stopped. However, some people decided that they should continue this scare, and have sent out this email to millions of people, who pass it on to you or your friends. This email is not real. Your account will not close down. Hotmail is not going to close down. Stop sending this email on to everyone you know, chances are they have already recieved it from some other idiot!

Whats the point of English as a subject?

I was talking to one of my friends a few days ago, and he said "I like math because it all makes sense. Unlike English class which happens to be the most pointless class in the world." This made complete sense to me.

In maths, everything makes sense, and even if we aren't going to use the information later on in life (that's right! You are not going to use more than half the information you learn in maths later on in life unless you are a math teacher). Each problem has a solution, and can be solved even if it takes some time.

But English is different. In English, you are taught how to read and write. This is useful when you are younger, but when you are 15, I don't think you need to be taught this anymore. Also, you are asked all those comprehension questions. What's up with that? When I read a book, i'm not thinking, hmm what a strange onomatopoeia, or what a wonderful metaphor! I normally just read a book to read the book. So when we are told to analyze a book for English class, what's the point. we are told to read the book for homework, and then, once we forget everything that we have read, we are supposed to be able to analyze it! What's up with that?
Another thing is that in English, there is no right answer. One paper can be graded by two different teachers, and get completley different scores. This is because there is no one answer for the questions. There is also not one explanation for a question either, like in the tradegy of Romeo and Juliet. Act III sc. 3, Juliet's mother, Lady Capulet, is angry at someone, but its not clear who that someone is. It could either be Mr. Capulet, or Juliet. You could argue that out, and either answer could be right.

So whats the point of having an English class? "you have to know how to write a letter, proper use of words, or when to use a comma", but we learn all of this any way in other subjects like History. What do you think? Which is the most pointless class in the world?

"Honor" Suicide

Ok. This may just be the craziest thing I have EVER heard of! Its called honor suicide. It is a disgusting ritual performed by the Japanese during battles or protests. If you don't have a very strong stomach, I advise you to STOP reading now.

A man would offer himself to be the honor suicide man, and as the ceremony progresses, he will stand up on a platform, take a sword, and slice himself open from the abdomen. To make it worse he will then pull out his guts, as he is fighting to stay alive. As the body starts to fall back, the assistant will catch the body, and then slice the head of. No blood is allowed to be lost, because they collect the blood to pour over the body later.

Is it just me, or has our civilization gone crazy? Ok, so this was a long time ago, but that doesn't change the fact that is still happened!!! So you want to show that you have honor for your country by killing yourself? And insuch a gruesome way? Crazy!!!

I found this information out while doing the history project, and just thought that I would share the gruesome details with all of you.