Dead Week

Can you believe it. I still have to learn more in Chem during DEAD WEEK.
So, we're learning about moles. 6.02 x 10^23!
It's a big number. Fun stuff. My chem teacher even has a video of him singing about it on YouTube.

GLEE FINALE. Awesome! I love Glee. Now, I kinda don't want American Idol and just let Glee run on and on!

SSFAC Meet this week. It might be canceled?? OH NO! Well, let's hope it isn't, cause I'm in for some major time dropping!

Bonds and Stuff

Bonds bonds bonds. That's what we've been learning in chemistry class. Gosh there are so many ways to make bonds and stuff. It's so confusing, I don't know how I'll be able to remember all of this for the TEST.

Thanksgiving Week Recap

Last week was amazing. 2 days of chemistry and then THANKSGIVING BREAK. It was much needed, I'm tired and seriously need a break.

No. Wait. ONE day of chemistry. I was on a field trip on Monday to the CASL Conference. I learned a lot, and I loved all the activities I did. I learned about confetti and my favorite speech was from Keith Hawkins. He was amazing, and he really taught me a lot while making the whole experience really fun.

Chem... We did chem bonds and stuff. It wasn't too bad, but I have a test next friday.

SOLO MEET! I did so great! I have almost all A times now, including my worst stroke Backstroke. Now, I just have to wait for the SSFAC Meet and bring down that 100 butterfly time I know I can bring down. I'm working hard on it! An A time is a time standard for swimmers, and you try to make them so you can become better and faster. A times are pretty great.

Balls Galore

Today we played with balls. Seriously. We shoved them together and made molecules. Isn't that great. My chem teacher even went off warning us not to destroy his balls and made a whole ton of puns with "balls". Yeah... class is great.

I have my SOLO meet tomorrow! Yippeee! I don't feel ready at all, but I guess I'm always prepared to make a new best time!

another week

Another week has passed in this chemistry class. I think we're learning about some sorta bonds and molecules. We're bending and heating metals in class. Fun. We're making a Molecule Webpage today. Great. This class is great.

Homecoming Recap

Well, I just noticed I don't have a blog about our HOMECOMING.
Don't quite remember what we did in Chem, but I remember what we did for Leadership!

We had SO much to do. Everyday was a dress up day, starting with Black and White Monday, Horror Tuesday, Comedy Wednesday, Western Wednesday, and Austin Powers Sophomores! Black and White was a basic dress up day. This was my first actual dress up for Horror! I ripped up an old tee shirt, and covered it in fake blood. It looked really cool, and people were scared. I even go a bit of makeup from the Seniors! Comedy, or Wacky, wasn't really my strong point, so I didn't have much of an outfit. For Western, I wore my newly bought, 7 dollar (came with the help of a gift card) plaid shirt. And a bandana, yep! Western alright! Austin Power day, my friend made me a shirt with a peace sign on it. That was awesome.

Let me tell you about my CRAZY Friday! I was at school from 6am, setting up for our rally. Then, I had to skip almost all my classes, including Chem, to set up for the rally, then clean up after the rally, then set up for the big night Homecoming Game. Yep, Leadership work all day long. It was GREAT. I even got my VIKAMANIA tee shirt, a Homecoming Exclusive. I only went to my English Class to learn a bit of caligraphy, after getting a cut on my hand! Ouch! Then, I was back to setting up for the dance! At 5:00, I was down at the field, selling Millsware all thoroughout the game. Guess What!? WE TIED! Against El Camino. I really hoped that we could win. Too bad there's no OVERTIME. I left school at 10:30 that day.

Saturday was great. Back at school AGAIN at 10:30am. We finished up decorating for the dance, then went home. I got ready, and was back at 6:45 to start up the dance. I had a great time. It was stopped a bit because we had some technical problems and someone dislocated her leg. That was epic. I stayed after to clean up for the dance, and left school at 11:00pm. WHAT A WEEK. I could have basically lived at school!

Well, that was my Homecoming!

Ions, Bonds, Light??

Ok. So I've made up all my work that I missed. All I have left is to take this English test. Yippee.

So, We have a Chem test tomorrow..... ON WHAT? I really have no clue, but I guess it's supposed to be on Ions, and Light. Really, I can't remember a thing of what we learned. I guess that's what the test is on, because we're in the computer lab playing "games" about them. Oh well, a couple more spreadsheets or so to do, and wish me luck!

OH NO

Well, I missed two days of chemistry, sick with the SWINE FLU. Well, thankfully, I had the mild case, so no throwing up or anything. But, it also means no Halloween Parties or BAC Spooktacular Swim Meet for me! This really stinks! I was really hoping to drop some times. I guess I'll just have to wait for SOLO and SSFAC!

Well, I think we're learning about light and moving into chemical bonding. I'm not too sure whats going on now. We have a test next week. Wonder how I'll do on that one!

Conservation of Mass?

Ok. This week, all I can remember seriously learning was the conservation of mass, and a bit about alpha, beta, and gamma decay. And we talked a bit about nuclear fission and fusion. Then, the next thing I hear is that we have a Test on Monday! WHAT!? Oh no! What have we actually seriously learned. Gosh, I don't know what to do! Seriously, WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED? Well, wish me luck! :(

Spreading Sheets

It's my 9th week of school, and I learned how to make a spreadsheet on Google Docs. We did a lab about half lifes, flipping 100 pennies in three trials. Within 6 flips, we would end up with 1 or 2 pennies on tails. Amazing isn't it? After finding our data, we made our spreadsheets on Google Docs. That was a pain, because I had no idea how to use it! Thankfully I learned, and I made a really cool chart with the spreadsheet and it was cool! I hope I get to do more of it!

Electrons Galore!

Week Six of school, and we finally learn about ELECTRONS! Well, I learned that around a nucleus in an atom, is this huge electron cloud. Electrons float around in shells, and the outermost shell contains valence electrons that can be "given away" to other atoms. I have no idea what that means! We also got to play with dry ice, which was pretty cool. The dry ice in water made a whole ton of fog stuff, and it was really cold. When we put a bunch in an empty fish tank and blew bubbles in it, the bubbles just floated and didn't pop. That was crazy! We also blew up balloons and stuff, and did a whole bunch of other fun and weird stuff with it.

The DCD Meet was a BLAST! My first day, doing the 4x100 yard freestyle relay, 100 yard backstroke, and 100 yard butterfly, and the 50 yard freestyle. For the relay, I broke a minute for my split! That's the first time I've ever broken the 100 yard freestyle, but too bad it doesn't actually count. I dropped all my times, which was good! The next day, I did the 400 IM relay, doing the 100 butterfly leg, the 200 yard IM, the 100 yards breaststroke, and the 100 yard freestyle. I dropped my butterfly time by another half a second from the day before, even though it didn't count. Then, for the 200 IM, I did a fantastic job, getting FIRST in my heat, making a 2:28! I also won my heat for breastroke, and I think I could have gone faster, because I wasn't even tired. The 100 yard freestyle was crazy. I OFFICIALLY BROKE THE MINUTE, making a 58.5! That was a great meet for me!

Chemistry Week Five

Oh dear, a C + in my Chemistry Class!

I guess C for Chemistry?! OK, bad joke. Yea, that test I took on the third week, I was right when I said I did a bad job! A flat out 70% on that test. On top of that, I was so absorbed in taking my test, I didn't realize that I was supposed to turn in 50 points of papers till THIS Monday! YIKES! Well, I still got an 80% on that, since it was late and all. But hey, some score is better than no score! Swinging around to my 5th week of school, I better pull it up with next week's TEST!

Well, this week in Chemistry, I created a website an Element. The element I got was Radium. Lucky for me, I got an element I hardly know! Well, I learned a bit about it. Too bad there isn's a TON of information on it, since it's radioactive and all. Well, check it out here: http://sites.google.com/site/harrisonjkwan/

Oh, I really have to say this! Last Saturday, I met these Olympic swimmers at this event called Swim Champions. IT WAS SO FUN!! For all the swimmers out there: YOU SHOULD GO!! I got to see Matt Grevers, Ben Wildman-Tobriner, Ous Melloui, and Christine Magnuson. They were amazing, and I learned so much. It's great to know that these people started out as ordinary swimmers just like me! They were CRAZY fast! They'd dive in, and pop up a second later 3/4ths the way down from the pool. Man, I wish I could swim like that! Wouldn't that just be terrific!?

Well, the DCD meet's coming up. Its going to be great, since it'll be a chance to make my goal - all A times for every event! Tell you about it next week!

Chemistry Week Four!

We're coming around to our FOURTH week of school! Chemistry has been a CRAZY class! We just recently learned a song about Unit Conversion. We also made a video of it, and it's somewhere on YouTube! Its a great song, but the lyrics hasn't really gotten stuck in my head. So, too bad for me, I did a horrible job on my IsaTest.

Well, this week we've been learning about the Periodic Table of Elements, and all the patterns and properties of it. We also got to organize the table in our own way, but it ended up looking almost exactly like the current Table we have right now! Amazing isn't it!?

Well, I'm glad this week's over! It's been a long week! Tomorrow, I'm going to meet four Olympic swimmers in this event called "Swim Champions", and do all sorts of cool stuff with them! I can't wait! It'll be awesome!

Chemistry Week Three

Week Three! I'm proud to say that I can wake up for school now without feeling grumpy! That's really quite an achievement!

This week in chemistry, we took a lot of notes from our books. From our notes, we had to learn quite a bit of vocabulary! Well, to checkout all the work I have been doing so far, check out my google docs page at http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AXKpEbJT57SfZGZwdDVtaDNfMWZudHpuNGRo&hl=en . Well, after all those notes, we had to take a test on unit conversions! whoopee! I did a horrible job on that. My unit conversions need a lot of work! Showing the work is so hard. I hope that I will get to understand it soon. Oh, we also got a new seating arrangement. Its such a coincidence, how all the guys are on once side and the girls on the other. Hmm, I won
der why the class is set that way.....

Chemistry Class Week Two

Wow! I'm at the end of my second week of school, and it's going so slowly! In chemistry class, I have learned so much! We're starting to learn about matter. We did a lab where we tried to guess the weight of an object and measured it. I was way off! That was also pretty disastrous, since some of my lab buddies dropped the glass test tube. It created quite a mess... Another lab we did was turning an ordinary penny into a silver penny, then to a gold penny. That was pretty fun, because we got to use fire and burn the silver penny and turn it gold. I really love safely playing with fire. Another crazy thing in chemistry class is that our class is now split up into groups called metals and nonmetals. For some reason, and this was a "random" pick, all the guys are on one side (so I'm a metal), and the girls are on the other. What a coincidence ehh?

Oh, I have to add, I have been keeping up to my goals! On Monday and Tuesday, I cooked up some quesadillas for breakfast and for my swim buddies after practice. I also should tell you about this test set we all did. I didn't do too well, but our set was to swim twelve 100s on the minute forty, and get our best, worst, and average. My best was a 1:13, my worst being a 1:15 (which I only got once by the way), and my average was 1:14. It's a start, but I seriously wish I went faster!

Well, that was sorta my week. Wait up for next week!

My First Post!

Hey! My name is Harrison Kwan, and I'm starting this blog as part of my 10th Grade Chemistry Class. I am so excited to write this blog, it's a whole new experience! Our first post: our goals.

Goals are very important. They are a bit annoying to me, since every year we have to think up of new goals to make and break. As a swimmer, I always get the lecture from my coach about how important it is to make goals, and the higher your goals are, the better you will get at swimming. So, now, making goals in swimming is quite easy for me. My first goal would be to get better in swimming. I am supposedly quite fast, but I don't feel that way. I want to be faster! In swimming, your times are rated in standards, starting with the B time, to the A time, then JO (junior olympics), Far Westerns, and Pacific Record Time. My times are currently all B times, but I am getting ever closer to A times. It's a small step, considering that I have only started competitively swimming last year. I am so excited to swim, and I hope that by the end of the year, ALL my times will be A times.

Enough with swimming now, it can't be my WHOLE entire life! Another goal I have for myself, since this is the first week of school, is to do well with school. I have to say that I've gotten a bad start. Just a few days ago, I messed up on my first English essay, not writing a rough draft or correcting my typed draft and leaving a final. I felt horrible when I found out, which was just a period before that class! From there, I knew that I have to get my head together and get ready for school now. I had a successful year last year, and I'm sure I can have another one this year! Hopefully, I can achieve this second goal, to do well in school.

A passion I have, besides swimming, is cooking and baking. Kinda weird for a fifteen year old guy, but it's still fun. Baking cookies and cakes is really fun, and for me, two batches never come out the same way. Maybe that's not such a great thing, but it's still fun for me. Everytime I bake, I give my cookies and things to my friends at school, and they always give me positive remarks. I've been trying out Ina Garter's Ginger Cookies, which were fabulous. They were nice and chewie, and had a small hint of ginger. I'm not really a big fan of ginger, but I could handle these cookies. Baking is really a fun and messy thing, and my mom is never too happy with cleaning up after me, but the results are great. I am not as crazy about actually cooking, since I never get enough chances to do them, but I'm learning. Lately, besides pasta, I've been cooking myself cheddar cheese quesadillas and scrambled eggs (with spam sometimes and rice). They're really great, but I usually create quite a mess. An accomplishmen I've had with cooking is that I can crack my eggs without leaving eggshells. Well, back to my goal in cooking and baking: Make more food and get better at it!