Weeeeeeeee!

So I am super excited that it is almost the end of the year! I have attended many of my friends graduations this weekend and I'm excited mines is next :) Physics has been a huge rollercoaster of laughs and . . . bad grades. Hahahaha :) Oh well :) Anyways, thanks for everything Doc! Even though we may have given you more than enough white hairs. So this past weekend I parked in Aina Haina shopping center so I could go get myself a subway sandwhich :) On the way there, there was this shiny thing on the ground. I walked closer and only found a puddle of liquid. But then I recalled physics! The liquid on the ground was not water, but oil! Light is refracted upon the thin layer creating what seems like a rainbow on asphault! Well, that's it! Bye bye physics!

:)

So my weekend was very fun-filled. Lots of BASEBALL. We're 5th in the state & ILH champs :) I'm going to miss baseball SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much :( Especially since it has everything to do with physics (projectile motion!). Friday after the baseball game I went to sandy beach. The waves were huuuuuuge, and BLUE! Yup, the blue ocean has everything to do with physics! Water absorbs longer wavelengths of light such as Red and Infared. Shorter wavelengths such as blue and ultra violet are not absorbed, thus why the ocean appears cyan/blue! Then, all of a sudden this man was hurt so someone called 911. The ambulance and police came with their sirens on demonstrating the Doppler Effect! Then last night I had a prom to go to. It was pretty fun :) 

Sun rays, go away :)

So this weekend I drove, a lot :) While I was driving on the freeway, the sun's rays were glaring into my eyes so I had to drive squinting. How inconvenient! I believe the rays were reflecting off of the asphault pavement and directly into our windshield. Instead of panicking, I grabbed my handy dandy sun glasses, which were horizontally polarized, and I was able to see the road almost as clear as before. So, yay for sun glasses. They're life savers, literally :)

Light

So I was sick this whole week which sucked because I stayed home (besides the baseball game which I had very important business attending!) Well anywayyyyy, I only remember that I learned about light polarization. We were given filters and looked through them at certain lights such as reflection off of windows. When you turn the filter 90 degrees, it would sometimes turn black and is no longer transparent! Those light particles are polarized! (Because light is an electromagnetic wave! :) Yay for physics!

:) :)

This weekend was family fair!!!! At the fair I saw a carebear prize that I really wanted to win. In order to win the "big" prize, you had to throw a plastic ball into these metal milk jugs. And not just one ball...THREE! I spent a lot of money trying to win the bear, and each time I would adjust my formation so that the ball would fall into the jugs. No, it did not consist of calculating any angles or velocity, although it does have to do with projectile motion! Unfortunately I did not win, but my friend won it for me :) I also stayed at the Hilton this weekend and  they have new slides! :) I rode them, and it wasn't bad at all. Since so much water was flowing down the slide, my heavy self was able to slip down real fast because there was barely any friction (:

happy easter!

Yay to three day weekends! Btw, happy easter! So my younger cousins came over this afternoon, and they both do not have pierced ears. However there was something on their ears. I went to take a closer peek, and there were magnetic earrings attached to their lobes. Each magnet has a north and a south pole, where opposites attract and like charges repel. Although each magnet appeared very small, the magnetic attraction between the front and backing of each earring was strong enough to stick together with the lobe skin in between. Pretty ridiculous! I also went with a few friends to play tennis. As usual, projectile motion took place! Just a little from last semester (:

magnets!

As a senior, I have been waiting for my college mail. This weekend I got my last letter, and I got into Chapman! Like any excited student, I took my letter and stuck it on the fridge! No silly, not with tape, with a magnet!!! In order for the magnet to stick to the fridge, a magnetic field must be present. And don't forget, opposites attract, and like forces repel! Because the magnetic force between my magnet and my fridge is so great, the paper is able to stay up for everyone to admire (: Yay to physics!

lalala

So it was a really tough week for me, and I missed a lot of physics so I really don't know what to write about. A couple weeks ago there was a candle light vigil held for my Aunty at Waianae High School. They claim that there were over 1000 people present, overflowing the auditorium. There were speakers using a microphone in order for everyone to hear. Because there were people outside of the auditorium, the sound waves from the microphone must have carried the sound so that the people outside could hear. 

And now we're talking about lights and circuits. I am not toooooo good at it right now, except I know my house if full of them! (: 

(:

So it is finally the weekend. (: As I was driving into Palolo, there is a church on your way into the valley. On the top of the roof there is a long silver pole. Since I was young I always wondered what that was! To my surprise, it is called a lightning rod! Lightning strikes the closest object, aka the tallest. Because the lightning rod is taller than the rest of the building and is made of metal which is a good conductor, the electrons in the lightning travel directly into the ground rather than into the wooden building. If there was no rod present, the wood would immediately catch on fire and burn down. It is safer to be in a metal building because it is a good conductor, and the inside will have a net force of zero. Yay.

electricity!

This week of physics was pretty fun :) We got to finally play our project, and might I add it was a success (although we definitely had a rocky start!) So anyways, this week we started learning about electricity! When I was little, I used to love getting free balloons from my dentist :) When I got home, I used to rub it against my mommy's hair, so that her hair would stand up. Only recently have I learned how that worked! When there is FRICTION, the balloon becomes negatively charged since the electrons from our hair move towards the rubber. When our hair loses electrons, it becomes more positively charged while the balloon becomes more negatively charged. We also learned that like charges REPEL, while opposite charges ATTRACT. Since the hair and the balloon become oppositely charged, when the balloon is raised, the hair sticks up. Also, when the hair sticks up, each strand is far apart, because each strand of hair is positively charged, aka have like charges therefore they repel!

Baseball Physics

This weekend Iolani held its baseball tournament, and yes, I am a new manager :) Yay! I realized that baseball is all about physics, which is probably why Doc coaches! As we know, there is projectile motion happening everywhere, from base to base, and also when the ball is hit. In order to hit the ball, the player must know when to swing. Although each batter does not mentally calculate the velocity of the pitch, they must observe in order to have a good idea of when to swing. When the ball is hit into the air, aka pop fly, the defensive players must be able to estimate the distance of the hit in order to catch the ball :) 

Punahou Carnival

This weekend was the Punahou Carnival. As much as I would like NOT to support our enemy, I thought I would go since it would probably be the last carnival I go to in the next four years or so. There were so many cool rides, including the roller coaster, which used to be called the Ring of Fire (it's called something else now, though). As I watched the roller coaster, I thought of physics and how normal force is always in the radially inward direction. Because this ride is so scary, I also thought of the sound waves these screams produced. When I stood close, I could hear people screaming when they were on the top of the ride, upside down. However, when I was farther away, I could hear their screams, but by the time I looked up, they were already on their way to the bottom (facing right-side-up). This is because it takes sound a longer time to travel a longer distance, which also has to do with the Doppler effect, because I, the listener, was moving away :)

PS. I haven't had any pictures because I lost the memory card for my camera :( I am extremely sad, but hope to get a new one soon.

:)

This weekend was pretty exciting considering that the Super Bowl and the UFC Championship took place around the same time. Unfortunately, BJ Penn was not able to live up to his reputation, losing three out of the four rounds that took place (yes everyone, he did not make it to the fifth round.) Then today, the Steelers won the Super Bowl championship, and I won $30 from bets, even though I was at work the ENTIRE day. Lame. 

So ironically, the entire weekend I saw ambulances everywhere (okay, well three times minimum!) And boy are those sirens LOUD. I noticed that as the ambulances drives closer to me, the noise gets louder because the sound WAVES become more frequent. As it passed me, the sound waves were a lot softer and took longer for me to hear because the waves were much less frequent than before. Physics is amazing, isn't it?

Barack Obama :)

Dear Physics Journal,

So this weekend I got a new macbook! :) Yay, how excitinggggggg! Oh, not to mention our soccer game was on TV!!!! We lost, but at least the season is over so I have lots of free time! 

So America is up for another big chance, Hawaii's own Barack Obama! :) First off, I thought it was super cool how he became the first African American president. It's pretty incredible to think that not even one hundred years ago, African Americans were still enslaved. It shows how much our country has changed, even though there are still cases of prejudice. Well, as everyone knows, Obama has proven to be a much better speaker than our last president. (HAHAHAHA), not but really. His speech has inspired many throughout the country that America will face changes, and for the better. He supplies hope for those less fortunate, and even promises peace around the world. 

We can never take anyone's word for granted, even if he is the President. We, as citizens, can only wish him the best of luck, in hopes that he will keep his word. All the power to him! Congrats, Obama! Let's make some changes, for the better :)

Elizabeth Ignacio

On Thursday we were honored enough to listen to Dr. Ignacio speak with us. She is an accomplished woman who has broken the barriers for many other women in the medical field. She covered with the students the experience and qualifications needed in order to become a doctor, and stressed that you should only pursue the medical field if you have a passion for it, not money. I thought it was very interesting when she informed us of the training you need to go through during your "slave work" period (80 hours a week, for minimal pay. She also did not fail to include some PHYSICS in her speech, just for you Doc! She went over a lesson we just discussed: LEVERARMS! :) Anyways, in conclusion, she convinced me that maybe the medical field is not for me, even if I thought about pursuing it before. So listening to her speech was very beneficial, and I was greatly inspired by her words.