onsdag den 21. december 2011

Christmas is coming...

Hey all!


As is often the case since I'm in the IB program at Westwood, I have loads of homework and some big assignments here and there. Last time I wrote on here it was Thanksgiving weekend. That following week, we had the "infamous" toothpick (yes, toothpicks, glued together) bridge project for Mr. Woods' physics class. And of course, I didn't get started until about Tuesday. It was due Friday. I have become quite a procrastinator, and that hurts my sleep a bit. I think I must've spent 12-15 hours working on this bridge, which did indeed include some late nights.


The pens are on there to keep some of the toothpicks from falling






























This is the top part. On the Thursday night before the project was due, I finished both the bottom and top parts and prepared to put the entire thing together. At this point, it was 1 a.m., and I realized then that I had put the bridge together in the wrong order and the top and bottom parts didn't fit. After 30 minutes or so of yelling, swearing and throwing stuff around, I finally came up with an idea, and about an hour later the bridge looked like this: 




The idea of the bridge project was to construct a bridge that would span a one-foot gap and support 10 (4,5 kg), 20 (9 kg) and then 30 (13,5 kg) pounds, which would be placed in a bucket hanging from a wooden plate placed on top of the bridge. Needless to say, since the bridge didn't fit together as planned, it wasn't too solid. Everyone had their bridge weighed and then had it tested. Here's mine:


That was the 10 pounds. I kind of felt like all my work had somewhat gone to waste, although I did get grade points for just showing up with a bridge.

Later that Friday night, our church had it's annual christmas party. This party is mostly just for adults, but I volunteered to help out with cooking the food. Anything for a free meal, right?

Speaking of school, this last week we had our finals for the semester. Overall, it went pretty good and I didn't really get stressed as much as some of my classmates. Plus, it is always fun when my English teacher, Mrs. Johnston, has to ask the class why the foreigner is getting the best grade on the exam. The school had changed our schedule for this past Monday and Tuesday to make room for tests. Our classes would be 75 minutes long instead of 55, and we'd only have 1st, 2nd and 3rd hour Monday, followed by 4th, 5th and 6th on Tuesday. For all my Monday classes, we had already taken our tests. So it was just a day of fun. In English we watched a movie. In History, we had just finished our unit on the Mexican Revolution of 1910, so we held a Mexico-themed fiesta, complete with food (tamales, burritos, tortilla chips and all that good stuff), a piñata and people dressing up as someone from the Mexican Revolution. Whenever I get the picture of us all, I will post it on here! We pretty much did nothing in Math class. Good thing our Math teacher has a TV so we could watch ESPN's SportsCenter.

I had tests on Tuesday for my 4th hour, Physics, and 5th hour, Spanish. During our Physics test, the school had to evacuate because the fire alarm went off for about 5 minutes. It was set off by accident (not in our class) I learned, but I gotta admit it seemed like someone sure didn't want to take their tests. That's what I thought was the reason someone set off the alarm haha.
Since I don't have a 6th hour class this semester, my winterbreak started early.

It is nice to finally have a break from school, so I get to relax for a while. Christmas is coming up, it's gonna be fun to try an American. Kirsten, who lives in North Carolina and is one of my few host siblings who've grown up and moved out is spending Christmas with us here in Arizona.
I will be taking a trip to Utah around New Year's to visit some of the family that we have up there. I'm looking forward to that!

As a little side-note, I want to say thank you to my neighbor from back home, Agnete, who sent me a chocolate advent calendar, she usually buys one for me every year, and this year, even though I'm several thousand miles away is no exception. I know you're probably reading this, so thanks a lot! I have noticed that Americans don't really do advent calendars.
Here it is (or what's left of it):



Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you!

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